Last Summer
by KateMonster
Summary: Now complete. A prequel to Season One of The OC. During the summer of 2003, Theresa finds herself growing apart from Ryan as his life spirals further out of control. A story of friendship, loss, and growing up in the heat of a Chino summer.
1. The Annual

**Title:** Last Summer  
**Author:** Kate Monster  
**Rating:** PG-13... shouldn't be too bad  
**Summary:** A long work-in-progress, and a prequel to Season One of The OC. During the summer of 2003, Theresa finds herself growing apart from Ryan as his life spirals further out of control. A story of friendship, loss, and growing up in the heat of a Chino summer.  
**Disclaimer:** You know which characters aren't mine. And if you don't know, why are you reading this? Josh Schwartz is God, and Ryan Atwood is Jesus. (But then what does that make Theresa? ...Please don't answer that.)

**Credits:** Thanks to Mini Monster for the song inspiration. And thanks to Maud, Walter and AKA for going beyond the call of a beta. Song is by Meredyth Willson.

_Good night, my someone_

_Good night, my love_

_Sleep tight, my someone_

_Sleep tight, my love_

_Our star is shining its brightest light_

_For good night, my love, for good night_

_Sweet dreams, be yours, dear_

_If dreams there be_

_Sweet dreams to carry you close to me_

_I wish I may and I wish I might_

_So goodnight, my love, good night_

_True love can be whispered from heart to heart_

_When lovers are parted they say_

_But I must depend on a wish and a star_

_As long as my heart doesn't know who you are..._

-from Meredyth Willson's The Music Man

**CHAPTER ONE: The Annual**

The chattering in the cafeteria always reminded Theresa of cicadas, millions of ugly, screaming cicadas all going at once, and today it was like a fucking 7, 9 and 13 year invasion, all at the same time.

"Ohmi_god_!"

Around her, the sights of girls in too-short skirts with chunky legs, boys trying to look too old and too tough, all mixing in never-ending circles of screams and shrieks.

"Minerva! Minerva!"

The smell of stale, probably expired and unhealthy cafeteria food. Limp pasta and over-spiced meat and the slightly rank smell of spilled milk that hadn't been properly cleaned.

"I'm gonna miss you soooo much this summer, doll-"

Cracking walls and peeling paint, and the staircase uneven from generations of teenagers tromping up and down.

"Your ass is _dead_, you hear me? Dead!"

A room packed with far more students than its designers ever fathomed it would hold, a school far beyond any reasonable capacity.

"Hey, anybody see where my yearbook got to?"

A gray, dingy tile floor that never looked clean, no matter how much the fat, rude janitors pretended to mop it while looking at the chunky legs underneath the too-short skirts.

"You, you flunk again, you moron?"

A part of her really wouldn't miss this place for the summer.

Reflexively, Theresa clutched her own yearbook to her chest, scouring the noisy chamber with an apprehensive glance. Nowhere. He was nowhere to be seen. It'd be just like him to cut on the last day, too. He'd narrowly escaped summer school, so therefore, it wasn't like they could suspend him or –

She spotted what looked like the right head of hair. The right slouch, the right empty table. Satisfied, she swung the book as she wound her way through the crowd. Then she stopped. No. No. Why were there a billion kids at this school who all looked like Ryan, with the industrial haircuts and black jackets? No, there he was, alone, lurking at a different table, off in the far corner. She could see his profile, it was definitely him - though she still checked again as she approached. She marched up to him and promptly clonked him over the head with her 2002-2003 Husky. "_Ow_! Hey! What-?"

"There you are, you jerk," she said as she dropped her knapsack across from him. She plunked the yearbook down. "Hey. Sign this while I get food. What've you got?"

Ryan shrugged, still eying the yearbook warily to make sure she didn't plan on using it again. "Sandwich and a juice. The usual?"

"Uh huh. Wait here." She grabbed her wallet from her knapsack and pushed back from the table, jumping up. Ryan shrugged again and bent down over his sandwich.

In the mass of chattering locusts in the cafeteria line, Theresa weighed her choices carefully against her remaining lunch money. Two greasy slices of Pizza Hut – she could only stand to eat about one and a half, so she could force the second half on Ryan. A bag of Fritos, easy to divide, and a twenty-five cent Nutty Bar. She'd force one of the two sticks on Ryan out of politeness, and he'd accept. He'd moan about it, but he'd accept. But just to be polite. This was their routine, their game. The trick to it, she had learned long ago, was not to make him feel like a charity case, but like a hero for keeping the food from going to waste.

She carried the tray back to the table trying to tune out the cicadas, only to find him flipping idly through the yearbook. "Yeah, you done already?" She slid into the seat across from him and leaned forward to see what he was looking at.

He flipped a page and looked up. "Okay. So explain to me why the varsity basketball team gets four pages, and the drama club gets half of one?"

She grinned as she pried open her carton of milk. "You're not asking me that, are you? Seriously?"

"Seriously!" he assured her, his wide-eyed expression backing up his insistence. She could see the slightest hint of a smile beneath it all.

"Welcome to reality, Ryan Atwood. Six more inches and you could be a high school all-star." She held out the open bag of Fritos and he obligingly took a handful. "Maybe in a year or two."

"You know," Ryan said as he crunched on a Frito, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Trey stopped growing when he was fifteen. I might be done."

She eyed him critically, looking up and down. "Ooh. Hope not."

"Oh, _now_ who's the jerk?" He tossed a Frito back at her and she caught it deftly, swooping it into her mouth and crunching it.

Theresa jutted her chin at the yearbook as she swallowed the chip. "So are you done? With the book, I mean, hopefully not the stunted growth spurt."

He looked concerned. "Uh-"

She waved the bag of Fritos around in frustration. "It's the last day of classes already, Atwood. Whadya waitin' for, college?"

"Are you kidding, have you _looked_ at my transcript lately?" Ryan shook his head and snorted. "Look, I'll take it home, do it there."

"No. No way. It's a yearbook. A school yearbook. You have to sign it now. In school. So you have-" She checked her watch, then held up her wrist to show him. "Three hours and seventeen minutes. Where's yours, anyway? We'll trade."

"I, uh-" Ryan shifted in his seat. "I didn't really get one." He reached up to scratch behind his ear bashfully.

She shook her head. "Yeah, why? What? You didn't want to remember your unforgettable sophomore year doldrums?"

He offered up a cocky grin. "Something like that."

"Jesus. Okay. You gotta have something. Wait. I know." She dug in her purse until her fingers closed around the packet from Wal-Mart. She pulled it out and opened it as Ryan looked on with remote interest. "Here."

He stared across the table at the picture, recognizing it even from a couple of feet away. "Oh. God. The history class presentations? No. Wow. Why did you even keep that?"

"Because I made a fantastic Joan of Arc, that's why." Ryan rolled his eyes at her and she hurled the photo at him. "It's for you already! Highlight of tenth grade."

"Yeah," Ryan muttered as he picked it up and stared at it. "Not much of a year, huh?"

Theresa cracked up and tried to snatch the picture away from him. He clutched it to his chest, feigning offense. "Okay, so hand it over and I'll sign that for you in return for the yearbook."

Ryan stared at the closed book on the table, resigned. "I hate this stuff, Theresa. It's stupid." He held the picture away from her.

"So humor me."

"Like I even want anything to remember this year by."

"Ryan-"

But he was launching in to one of his tirades now. "Anybody who says high school is the best time of your life is either lying, or leading an amazingly pathetic existence."

She snatched the picture from his hands and shouldered her knapsack. "Oh, nice."

"What? What did I say?"

Theresa merely shook her head and stood, picking up her tray. She threw the Nutty Bar at him and he caught it with expertise. "Just meet me in the breezeway after final bell, and have that done already."

"Wow. Theresa. Sorry. Hey, what are you doing after school, anyway?" The Nutty Bar plastic wrap crunched loudly as his fingers peeled it off. She could still see the dirt under his fingernails even from this distance.

"Babysitting," she said, scowling at him.

"So can I come?" He broke off the top layer of the Nutty Bar and eyed her with his most hopeful expression.

"If you want," she said, her face not softening a bit. "You're not getting laid, though."

"Okay then." He licked some of the chocolate from where it had melted on the wrapper.

"Right. Bye."

So she had no reason to be annoyed with him. If he didn't like tenth grade, he didn't like tenth grade. So who cared if she did?

She passed through the swinging doors into the courtyard. The hot June sun was already beating down heavily, but she could stand it long enough to sign the picture for Ryan.

She slid into an empty picnic table and mindlessly munched on her pizza as she stared at the photo.

It _had_ been a good year. For her. Sure, she'd grown apart from Becca - but it was only because Becca had decided she didn't like Ryan. And that was for the best, because Becca was boring, and stupid, and flighty, and stuck-up, and everything Theresa had decided that she wasn't meant to be. So it was fine. Really. She was better off.

Better off being friends with Ryan.

Or... or whatever she and Ryan were.

"Ryan," she scribbled in her large, bubbly handwriting. She stopped and took a bite of pizza from her other hand. Yes. That was his name. Now what did she want to leave him to remember her by? To remember everything they'd done?

What was a yearbook, anyway? Well, to a boy. Arturo never looked at his – she was pretty sure, though not certain, that they were shoved in a box in the attic somewhere. It'd be just like Ryan to not even read what she wrote. Still, she couldn't let him get out of tenth grade with nothing.

They had done too much together this year for him to forget. Grown so much closer. Inseparable, even. She couldn't imagine tenth grade without Ryan, Chino without Ryan, life without Ryan. Sex without Ryan. Theresa without Ryan. They were just things that went together now.

"Ryan"- 

_Ryan..._

_Ryan._

She knew what to say.

Because.

It wasn't that big a deal. It was only Ryan, after all.

_Ryan-_

_Because you should never, ever be allowed to forget how good you were as Louis Quatorze. Because I was hot as Joan of Arc, and you better not forget that either. Because you're more than you give yourself credit for. Because everybody should have a friend who's always going to be there. I'm always going to be here. Remember fourth period trig, and Winter Dance (secret punch!), and four-leaf clover plants, and 2 a.m. at White Castle, and Pen-Ultimate Frisbee, and "YKWTFIT!" YKWTFIT now, _

_-Theresa_


	2. The Babysit

She scanned the sea of over-excited faces coming towards her in a steady stream, flooding through the now-useless Chino Hills metal detectors. Still chattering away. Fucking cicadas. Nobody else would be entering the school through the metal detectors for this school year, so for the moment they were turned off and every door was flung wide open. She turned for a moment and squinted into the bright, harsh sunlight. Had he slipped past her somehow? Had she missed him? Had he forgotten that they were supposed to meet?

Ryan was hard to pick out of a crowd. He was small, if stocky, and he slouched, and more often than not it seemed like he was deliberately trying to lose himself in the sea of faces.

And it worked. Everyone looked like Ryan. He was everyone and no one. His anonymity was frightening sometimes.

Sometimes she felt like she was the only thing keeping him from vanishing completely.

"Theresa. Hey."

And then, when she least expected it, he'd just turn up.

"There you are. God. I was beginning to think you really had cut out early."

He shoved the yearbook at her with an annoyed grunt.

"Wow," she muttered, shaking her head as she carefully tugged the photo from her lab book. He took it and dropped it into his own bag without even looking. So typical. She tucked the yearbook into her bag, then studied the lab book left in her hands.

In a flurry, she chucked the lab book in the trash. "Goodbye, Biology!" she said, triumphant. "Good riddance to dead worms and cell diagrams."

"That's the spirit," Ryan noted. "Goodbye European history, Medici and Michaelangelo and Mussolini." He reached for a notebook in his bag.

"Wait," Theresa said, grabbing his wrist. "I know! We'll have a ritual burning."

His eyes gleamed. "Yeah? Your place or mine?"

"How about the Medenas'?"

His grin vanished. Too quickly. "Why, uh, why the Medenas'?"

"Cause that's where we're goin'. I gotta babysit Brandon and Angel. And I'm not waiting till tonight to destroy _my_ Euro notes."

"The Medenas? I thought you quit workin' for them." He looked unusually concerned. Tense.

She rocked back and forth, swinging her bag. "Yeah, well, Juana Medena called my mom last night, it's an emergency. And the Head Start bus is gonna beat us there if we don't go now."

But Ryan was shifting his weight, looking away, looking nervous. "I don't know if I can make it," he said. "Trey's got a thing."

"'A thing'?" she mocked him. "Oh, come on. I need your help. Keep me sane. You know how that house is."

He was backing away now. "Yeah, I.... Uh, look. I'll find you later, all right?"

"Ryan," she whined.

"Have fun!" he offered half-heartedly as he hurried off.

"Damn right I will," she muttered to herself, watching him vanish again. "Screw you, jackass." The thought of Ryan going over with her was the one thing keeping her from going nuts. Theresa couldn't stand the Medenas – the parents screamed, the kids screamed, and keeping Brandon Medena from beating up the baby, who screamed the most, wasn't even close to being worth the four bucks an hour Mrs. Medena was paying her. But money was money, and a favor was a favor, and as Theresa trudged over to the bike rack, she wondered how old she had to be before nobody thought of her as a babysitter anymore.

* * *

She was all the way to the Medena house, sitting on the front stoop waiting for Angel's day sitter and Brandon's Head Start bus to drop them off, before she remembered the yearbook. She slid it from her knapsack and stared at the gold embossed cover for a long time before opening it.

She had to flip through to find the inscription. He'd signed the next-to-last page. Theresa had a lot of empty space in her yearbook. She wasn't really in to having strangers sign her yearbook. Just people who counted. Like Ryan.

Her fingers traced the familiar, skinny, pointy lettering.

_Theresa,_

_Thanks for being my friend. Have a great summer. Though I guess I'll see you all the time anyway. Call me. 909-555-6917._

_Your friend,_

_Ryan Atwood_

God. God, Ryan was such a guy it drove her crazy sometimes.

Maybe she wouldn't have it any other way.

The honk of the school bus startled her and she slammed the book shut. The bus doors were already open and the matron delivered a squirming, soggy, screeching Brandon Medena into her arms. She barely had time to strip his wet diaper off (was this kid ever gonna figure out the toilet?) and shove a cereal bar into him before Angel's dour-faced day sitter was at the door with an equally screeching Angel.

"There, there, Mami," Theresa cooed as she strapped the kid into her high chair. "Okay, Mami, time to shut up now," she added, a little sterner. "Hey! Angelita! You listening?" It was pointless, she knew, but sooner or later something had to get through. And around here, the kids seemed to understand very little short of screaming.

"Pow!" Theresa looked down from her position over the high chair, only to find that Brandon had somehow escaped the safety gates pinning him into the living room with the TV. "I go kill you! Pow-pow!" His grubby hands were clutching a plastic gun, pointed ominously in her direction.

Theresa sighed and hefted the boy up, empty water gun and all, depositing him back in front of Thomas the Stupid Train something. She fixed the gate he'd managed to knock over, and swore to herself that when she had kids, she was either going to strangle them in their cribs _before_ they got this big, or at the very least put more effort into parenting than the Medenas seemed to.

In the process, Brandon managed to initiate another round of screeching, fighting to drown his sister out.

"Fuck you!" he squealed, bouncing up and down by the gate, his black hair flopping over his forehead as he jumped.

Theresa blinked twice, not sure she'd heard right.

"I _beg_ your pardon?" she asked, peering down at him.

"Fuck you!" he tried again.

Again she blinked. "Okay, Papi, now, you didn't pick that up from Thomas the Dumb Train, did you?"

"I wa' canny! Fuck you, bitch!"

Odd how he couldn't pronounce candy, but the rest of his vocabulary seemed to be progressing at quite an advanced level. She sighed as Angelita started her screeching again. Theresa knew there was a reason why she hated the Medena house with a passion.

She glanced at the clock over the microwave. Only an hour and a half until Mrs. Medena came home, and she wasn't sure she could make it.

She wished desperately that Ryan would show up and rescue her. But she knew even before she completed the thought that it wasn't happening.

Not this time.

* * *

"Theresa? Hello?"

Theresa, Brandon and Angel all jumped at the sound from the door. Theresa breathed a massive sigh of relief and bounced the still-whimpering Angel in her lap. Another five minutes of Thomas the Massively Stupid Train and she'd be considering sterilization, which her mother would be none too happy about.

"Mamamamama!" Brandon squealed, barreling for the baby gate separating the living room from the front door.

"I am so sorry I'm late," Juana said, leaning over the baby gate. Brandon jumped into her arms, screaming as usual. By now, her head was ringing and it all sounded so... distant...

"Oh," Theresa heard herself replying, "It's okay." What? No, it wasn't.

Juana dug around in her purse with her Brandon-free arm as Theresa watched closely. "Here, here's twenty-five for your trouble-"

"Oh, no, I-"

"I insist."

"Okay." Theresa relented quickly and shoved the cash into her pants pocket. No arguments. She was quite certain that she'd earned it. "Tell Mr. Medena I said hi."

"...Oh," Juana said hesitantly. Her face fell. Too quickly. "Right. I thought you – you knew."

"Knew what?" Theresa asked, suspicious. She kept her hand planted in the pocket.

Juana sighed. She looked old. She _was_ old, to have two small children, and these two in particular weren't making her any younger. "Mr. Medena left me," she said. "Last week. Moved out."

"Oh," Theresa said, not sure what else to say. "I – I'm sorry."

"Not as sorry as his new girlfriend will be," Juana said darkly. "No, we're better off without him. It's just – he was always here to watch Angelita in the afternoons, and now I don't know if I can afford the sitter anymore."

"I – I'm sorry," she said again. Theresa felt suddenly ashamed, though she didn't know why. "I'm working at Pizza King this summer, otherwise-" Otherwise what? No way she would take on the Medena monsters for an entire summer.

"Oh no," Juana said, brushing her off. "It's fine. I'll probably take some time off, be with Angel. It will be," she heaved a deep sigh, "better. For this family."

"Uh huh," Theresa said, feeling with a certain conviction that now was _not_ the time to tell her about Brandon's increased vocabulary skills.

"You give my greetings to your mother," Juana said as she ushered Theresa out the door.

"I will," Theresa promised. She grabbed her bike from where she'd deposited it by the porch, and kicked off for her house.

Part of her wanted to hunt Ryan down and bust his alibi, and maybe bust his ass while she was at it. But after two hours with the Medena kids, she was ready for a good nap.

She'd find Ryan in the morning. After all, she had all summer to kick his ass.__


	3. The Summer

"Sleep well, Therese?"

Theresa rocked back and forth in the doorframe leading to the hallway, stifling a yawn. "Huh, uh-huh."

Her mother shook her head, disapproving. "Good way to start your vacation. You didn't even eat dinner."

"Yeah, well," Theresa sighed. "The Medenas. _You_ know."

Eva clucked her tongue. "Sylvia told me he ran out on them."

Theresa nodded as she slid into her regular seat at the table, savoring the smell of crisp, greasy bacon. "Juana says hi, though."

"You know, we should do something for them. You want to help me make a casserole later on?"

"Only if I don't have to take it over," Theresa grumbled, and her mother actually laughed. "You think I'm kidding."

"Oh, no, I'm sure that you're not."

"Ooh, bacon?" Arturo stomped loudly into the kitchen. "Hey-hey. What are you still doing here?" He stopped in his tracks, staring at his sister.

"Playing hooky," she said casually, slumping in her seat.

"Oh," he said, not getting it. "Be careful. You know they busted Trey's brother downtown last month for truancy."

"I know," she spat back. "And it's summer vacation, you moron."

"It is?" Arturo asked, befuddled. "So soon?"

"Don't call your brother names," Eva chided from the kitchen.

"Mom," Theresa whined back.

"So what _are_ you doing here, then?" Arturo asked, squeezing her shoulders from behind. "Go. Enjoy summer. There's sunshine and popsicles and playgrounds awaiting you, my child."

"I wish," Theresa sighed, shrugging him off. "More like the cash register at Pizza King."

Arturo threw his hands up and she shook her shoulders out, twisting in the seat. "It's not my fault these women keep me out of the loop!"

She laughed and swatted him with a napkin holder. "So are you working today?"

"No. Hey, me and the boys were gonna hang out this afternoon. We're going to Pepe's, if you want to come."

"Really?" She perked up. "Who's gonna be there?"

"Dunno. Eddie. Trey."

"Ryan?"

"I did not ask." Arturo snatched the napkin holder and began tossing it dangerously from hand to hand. "He's your boyfriend, isn't he? You ask him."

"Ryan is _not_ my boyfriend," she insisted.

"Arturo, put that thing down before you break it!"

Theresa exchanged an amazed look with her brother – their mother hadn't even turned around from the stove – before she took it from him and returned it carefully to the table.

"Sure he's not," Arturo scoffed.

"We're just friends," Theresa said firmly before narrowing her eyes. "Why? What did _he_ say?"

Arturo snorted. "What did he say? Does he ever say anything?"

"Does he ever have anything to say to you?" Theresa countered. Arturo grabbed at her hair and pulled. "Ow! Mom!" Her hands flew up to grab her scalp, to try and ease the sharp pain.

"Arturo, stop that this instant," Eva called, bored.

He jerked her hair again, causing her to smack him away. He turned on his heel, absorbing the blow, and wandered in the direction of the kitchen.

"He _looks_ like an eighteen year old boy," Eva sighed. "Sadly, it's an illusion. He is only eight."

"You treat me like it," Arturo grumbled.

"You want to be an adult?" Eva snapped. "Pay rent."

"Oh, but I _like_ being your baby boy, Mama," Arturo whimpered as he wrapped himself around her from behind.

"Ai yi yi. Both of you. Out. Out of my house. Here." Eva shrugged her son off and dumped the bacon on the platter beside the scrambled eggs. "Go. Devour like that the animals that you are, and go."

"You see?" Arturo asked as he carried the plate to the table. "You see how she treats us?"

"I see how she treats _you_," Theresa said. "I, on the other hand –"

"You," Eva sighed, "are a spoiled little brat who needs to come make some toast for everyone so she can earn her keep."

Theresa obediently scurried into the kitchen, kissing her mother as she passed. As she reached for the breadbox, the phone rang.

"So early?" Eva murmured as she moved to answer it. "Hello?" She set the receiver down. "It's Trey Atwood."

Arturo darted back into the kitchen and snatched it from the counter. "Hey, man! Yeah. Now?" Theresa glanced up at him. "I was gonna – okay. Lemme eat first. My mother cooked this delicious breakfast." He glanced up, hoping to score points, but Eva only shook her head as she carried the orange juice to the table.

"Ryan?" Theresa whispered to him as she dropped the bread into the toaster.

Arturo plugged his open ear with a finger. "Yeah. I got the stuff, we're cool, no."

"Is Ryan coming to lunch?" Theresa asked, a little louder.

"Okay. Seeya then. Right, man."

"Is," Theresa shouted, "Ryan! Coming! To! Lunch?"

Arturo made a face at her. "Chill, woman. Yeah, man. What she said." He paused. "He doesn't know." Theresa threw up her hands. "What?" he protested, tucking the phone to his shoulder. "Not like they live in the same house anymore."

"Still, he's Ryan's _brother_. He should know," Theresa argued.

"Like your brother knows what you're doing?" Eva interrupted politely.

"Yeah, I know she is," Arturo muttered into the phone. "Believe me. Okay. Be there soon." He dropped the phone back into its cradle.

"Ai yi yi, is it time for school yet?" Eva muttered. "Theresa, the toast."

Theresa turned to see that the toast had indeed popped up, and she grabbed the hot slices, dropping them quickly onto the plate before her fingers could burn.

"School's out till September, Mama," Theresa said, then let out a squeal of delight, twirling around with the plate of toast. "School's out! Till September!"

Eva just shook her head and snatched the toast away before it could fall. "Oh," she grumbled. "It can't come soon enough. Three whole months of this?"

* * *

Once her stomach was full and she had showered and made sure that her hair was in decent shape, Theresa bounced through the front yard, whipped around the overgrown fence on the corner, unhitched the gate, fastened it behind her, and made her way up the cracked sidewalk to the creaky front porch, where she pounded on the door.

A minute passed.

She shoved her hands in her pockets and glanced around. The cracked, peeling sea foam green paint, the weather-worn "outdoor" furniture. She knew for a fact Ryan would be only too happy when he could get away from this place at last.

Silence.

Theresa pounded again, impatiently.

The white door yanked open. "Oh," Ryan said, sizing her up. "It's you."

She wrinkled her nose. "Why are you dressed like that?" He had on his usual white tank top, but with dark, heavy jeans instead of his usual Dickeys, and his industrial boots.

"I gotta work." He leaned up against the doorframe, blocking her view of the inside of the house, in a manner that made Theresa want to jump him. Right now. In the yard. She didn't care who was watching. They'd seen sex before. They could deal.

"What are you doin' after?" she asked, licking her lips suggestively.

He shrugged and glanced over his shoulder, pulling the door in behind him. "I'm kinda busy right now, can we talk later?"

"If it's another girl you keep blowing me off for, you are gonna find out how much of a girly-girl I am not."

He cracked half a grin at that. "Sadly, no girls."

"Sadly?" she echoed, staring at him.

"Happily! Happy. I am. Very, very – I'll find you later, okay?"

"Tonight?" She hated to feel desperate, but... the lean... oh, the lean. She inclined her head, hoping to implant an idea in his brain.

"Maybe," he said, glancing over her head at something in the sky. He squinted against the sun.

"Ryan! You get my OJ?" Dawn's voice came from somewhere deep inside the house.

"Coming, Ma," he called over his shoulder. "Uh, yeah. So. I gotta go."

"Yeah," she sighed. "I'm having lunch with your brother and the guys, if-"

But he was already shaking his head. "I can't leave the site till my shift is up."

"Now, Ryan!"

He shook his head again. "Bye."

Not even a peck. Theresa sighed and leaned against the porch column as Ryan pulled the door closed.

Sometimes, she wasn't sure why she even bothered.

But then he leaned against the door like that, and she remembered. Oh, did she ever.

* * *

"Ai, hot mama!"

"Whoa, save me!"

Theresa laughed at the guys as she bashfully slid onto the edge of the vinyl seat. "Too much. Too much, fellows."

"Not a bit," Eddie insisted. "If you weren't Arturo's sister-"

"If she wasn't his sister," Trey said, cutting him off, "I think he'd want to do her, too."

This caused a fit of snorts in Trey and Trey alone, even as Eddie loudly protested, "That is _not_ where I was goin' with that!" Arturo, for his part, buried his nose deeply in his menu.

"Don't worry," Trey said, leaning over. "If you weren't _my_ brother's-"

"Yeah? Your brother's what?" Theresa snapped as she cut him off. "I'm betting he didn't call me much of anything, am I right?"

"Well..." He and Eddie exchanged a look.

"Just don't say it," she sighed. "So are we eating food, or what? I heard a rumor we were, it's why I'm here."

"So _is_ Ryan coming?" Trey asked, staring right at her.

"How should I know?" She stared back for a moment before breaking down. "Naw. He's workin'."

"Working?" Trey said. "Sucker."

Theresa didn't feel like pointing out that Ryan was probably working to support a mother who had given birth to both of them, while Trey hung out at a restaurant with "the guys". It was typical, anyway. Trey was a nutcase, Ryan was the stable one. Stable. Steady, predictable, dependable old Ryan. Too old, really, for his age.

"What are you eating?" Eddie asked, leaning over Theresa's menu.

"I don't know," she said, skimming. "Chocolate chip pancakes, or a chocolate milkshake with a burger? What do you think?"

"Well," Eddie said, seriously considering. "Either way, you do get chocolate."

"You know," she said, staring at him. "Eddie? That is so true."

"I think she's mocking me," he complained to the table at large. "Are you mocking me?"

"Eddie," she said, shocked. "I would _never_." She raised her eyebrows even as she glanced away, rolling her eyes slightly.

"Make her stop," he begged Arturo, who was sniggering into his menu. "Your sister's such a little bitch."

"Yeah," Trey chimed in. "Go home, bitch."

"Make me, jackass," she shot back. "And since none of you fools are any help, I'm going with the pancakes."

"Good choice," Eddie congratulated her. "But just in case you change your mind, I'll be getting that burger."

"He acts like he's gonna share it," she remarked to Arturo.

"Man," Trey said. "The kid is sharp. Arturo, your sister is fucking sharp."

"And clearly you're not, to just be figuring that out now," Theresa muttered under her breath.

Trey sat up abruptly as the other guys laughed at him. "Ouch!"

Theresa allowed herself a small smile as she slid back in the seat. Sparring with these guys was a challenge, and it never failed to please her when she won, which to be fair was frequently. But given that they were older and presumably cooler than her, every small victory counted. Sex appeal could only get her so far, but personality would carry her all the way home...

Eddie reached over for her menu. "Let me take that for you," he offered.

"Oh, thanks," she said absently, turning her menu over to him. She had to stand up for herself more when Ryan wasn't around. When he was around, the two of them pretty much paired off. If she couldn't swat the big guys off, Ryan would just give them a look and they'd shut up. He was handy like that.

"So Eddie, man," Trey said, a little too loudly, causing Theresa to jump, "how are your girls, anyway?"

"My... 'girls'?" Eddie inquired with a polite tone.

"Yeah. You, uh, you seein' somebody right now?"

"No," Eddie said, perplexed. "Not... now."

"Uh huh," Trey said. "I see."

Theresa wrinkled her nose at him. What was that about?

"My brother," Trey said pointedly, "would love a burger if he was here, you know."

"I know," Theresa said. "Um. I'm confused. Trey?"

Trey shook his head. "I'm just sayin' is all. Eddie, man, we need to find you a girl. What about Anita Allen?"

Theresa wrinkled her nose. "She's a whore. Hello."

"Yeah, welcome to Eddie's world," Arturo said, sniggering again.

"You don't want to go anywhere she's been," Theresa muttered.

Trey glared at her. "She's been with me," he pointed out.

"Okay, Trey? Really wanted to know that." She squinted and nodded at him. "Hey. I know. Save the trouble, you two can just have sex! With each other! Make it easier on all of us."

She wished she had a camera for the simultaneous look of horror on their faces. Arturo let loose with a loud bray, clapping his sister on the back.

She grinned around the table as they tried to calm down. She did fit with these guys. She was just one of the guys.

It was great, really; she just wished Ryan would quit thinking of her that way, too. Just for awhile, just every once in awhile. Just maybe once.


	4. Enough

Ryan didn't turn up that night.

Or the next.

Or the night after that.

He'd do that sometimes. Just vanish, as if he had better things to do. Better people to see. For all she knew, he did and was enjoying the company of every last slut in Chino, California. Since, after all, Theresa wasn't his girlfriend or anything.

She wondered sometimes what it would be like to have a best friend who was _really_ always there. Ryan was only her best friend by default and convenience, after all. Just like Trey was Arturo's best friend by default. She was pretty sure Arturo liked Eddie more than he liked Trey, overall, especially after the whole bar fight incident last year that they both did thirty days for. Trey's fault, completely. Eddie, Ryan and Theresa were at Eddie's house that night watching Gladiator. Gladiator. That was all Eddie, and that was why Theresa was pretty sure Arturo wished he'd been with Eddie and not Trey that night.

But Ryan and Trey lived next door to Theresa and Arturo, and they had for five years now, and it was easiest to hang out with them because they were more or less the same ages, and it was just that easy.

What if somebody else lived next door? She'd been thinking about that a lot lately, especially with Eva talking about actually buying a house. Somebody had lived next door before the Atwoods moved in, but for the life of her Theresa couldn't remember who, and she could barely remember anything else.

The phone rang on the third day without Ryan, just as Theresa walked in the door from work.

"I'll get it," she called to the empty house, knowing that more likely than not, she was the only one home. She dropped her purse by the door. "Hello?"

"Theresa!" Becca's voice squealed, and Theresa braced for the worst.

"Hi. Becs."

"How are you, girlfriend? Do you know that I did not even sign your yearbook?"

"Wow," Theresa said dully. "Well, too late now. School's out."

"That's too bad," Becca said, and she did sound sincere. "Can we fake it?"

"No... Becca... what's up?" Theresa asked, feeling unusually tired.

"Well," Becca said. Her voice was like the Energizer Bunny, pink and relentless and droning and noisy. Theresa put her hand to her forehead. She wondered if that was a headache that she felt coming on. "Lily and I are going to the mall tomorrow. We thought you might want to come. Oh!" she added, as an afterthought. "I meant if you're not working."

Theresa smiled tightly into the phone, gritting her teeth. So it was Becca-and-Lily inviting her along now. How times changed. "My shift is at four," she admitted.

"Kick_ass_!" Becca squealed. "Meet us at noon by the food court?"

Try as she might, Theresa couldn't come up with a reason not to. "...Sure," she said, against her better instincts. "Super."

"Fuck yeah! See you then!" The phone went dead and Theresa wrinkled her nose at it. Hanging out with the girls wasn't exactly top on her list right now, but if Ryan...

Ryan.

"Mama? Turo!" she called, peeking in the bedrooms. "No?" The coast was clear.

She felt in her pocket to be sure the keys were still there before slipping out the door, turning the lock behind her as she went. She crept around the corner to the Atwoods' porch, and rapped loudly on their door.

It opened almost immediately, and she jumped.

Theresa stared in shock at the last person she expected to see, as the wheels turned, processing, sorting out the pieces.

"Mr. Medena," she stammered. "I – uh..."

"What do you want?" he snarled.

"Is – is Ryan here?"

He stared down at her, his mouth hanging half-open. "No."

"Do you know where he is? Uh, is his mom home?"

"No," he said. "And no. Now get lost."

And then it hit her. Why A.J. Medena would be here, with the TV blaring behind him. Why Ryan had been so nervous the other day. Why he'd been missing – this time.

The new girlfriend.

"You still here?" Mr. Medena asked gruffly, staring at her.

"Theresa?" The voice sounded so small and faraway.

She glanced around Mr. Medena to see Ryan emerging from his bedroom, in a white t-shirt and his blue pants.

Shocked, she looked back at Mr. Medena. Why...? What...?

"Ryan," she said, in the calmest, steadiest voice she could muster. "You got a minute?"

Ryan glanced at Mr. Medena, then at Theresa, his eyes flitting quickly, barely making contact with the newest resident at the Atwoods' house. "Um, sure," he muttered, and shoved his way past the older man, whose eyes followed him the whole way.

"What?" Ryan snapped, once they had cleared the porch and the door had creaked shut behind them.

Theresa licked her lips, folded her arms, and noticed the worry lines in his forehead. She started to say something, then stopped. No. Ryan... was he trembling? Just a bit?

"Want to get out of here?" she asked suddenly.

Ryan seemed to relax before her eyes. "Yeah? Where to?"

She shrugged and reached for his bike. She hefted it to a standing position and offered him the handlebars. "Wait here? I'll get mine."

* * *

Theresa let Ryan lead the way, following a few feet behind, coasting down the roads winding through Chino. He was going fast, furious, an urgency in his ride that she only rarely saw in him. Her hair whipped in her face, but she was afraid to call out to him to wait for her to tie it back, afraid he would just keep going and ride straight on into oblivion.

Finally, in the woods near Carver Dairy, he stopped, hopping off his bike to start walking it down the path. She followed him, brushing through the forest until they reached the train tracks that ran alongside the edge of the river. They'd been here before. She knew this place.

By the time Theresa had hopped off her bike and settled it safely against a tree, Ryan was standing on the bank of the river, staring at it, his back to her.

Slowly, carefully, she approached him.

He bent down abruptly, startling her, to pick up a rock that he then hurled with great force into the water. It landed with a loud splash.

"Hey," she said softly.

He turned to look at her and tried for a grin, but it came out more of a wince.

"Why didn't you say?" she asked.

He kicked at the leaves with his boots. "Dunno."

"When did-?"

He hurled a stick into the water. "Last week." He glanced at her, then looked away quickly. "Eight days ago. That he moved in, I mean. I knew she was seein' him, I wasn't s'posed to say, though."

"Guess everybody'll know now."

"I thought you did." He shuffled his feet, crunching more leaves. "Or I thought – I knew you'd find out, I just..."

"Didn't want to be there when I did? No, that's not it. Didn't want to say it."

He nodded quickly, turning away to hide his face. "The second one."

Theresa thought of Brandon Medena, screaming at everything and hitting his baby sister. She remembered Mr. Medena yelling at Juana, and how little Juana seemed to miss him.

"Jesus, Ryan, I-"

"I mean, it's better, right?" he asked, his voice rising frantically. "I want her to be happy, and I should be _happy_ to have a guy around the house again-"

"Hey," she said quietly. "You shouldn't be anything you don't want to be."

He stopped and turned halfway to her. "Guess not."

"How – how is he?" she asked carefully. "I mean, how do you guys get along?"

"Great," Ryan said, in a disgusted tone. "He's nice to me. In front of Mom. Then he pretends I don't exist."

She nodded and reached for her pocket, digging out her cigarettes and her lighter. She held the pack out to Ryan, who drew a stick out and waited for her light. He inhaled deeply off of the cigarette, relaxing as he puffed out smoke.

"Guess I won't be helping you sit for those kids anytime soon," Ryan added, letting the cigarette drop to his side.

She raised her eyebrows as she lit her own cigarette. "Yeah. Maybe not." She watched him for a moment as he stared away from her, and lifted her cigarette to her mouth.

She carefully made her way across the fallen leaves to his side, where she wove her arms beneath his from behind. She dropped her cigarette on the damp ground and he stamped it out for her, then followed with his own. He stared across the river and leaned back into her for support as she clasped her hands, holding him to her. She could hear his heavy breathing even against the sound of the river stretching out in front of them.

"It's gonna be okay," she said quietly. She turned to rest her cheek between his shoulder blades.

"You've said that before."

"I know, and I'm saying it again," Theresa snapped. "Jesus."

"It's Ryan, actually," he said, his voice rising to a slightly more cheerful tone.

She pulled her arms away and slapped him across the back of the shoulders, hard. How could he even think of being funny when...? "Sure. Be funny already."

His shoulders shook a little bit as he laughed at his own joke, still turned away from her.

Theresa reached out and pulled him back to her. She reached around him and her hands wound down his chest, her fingers digging, tugging at the front of his pants, familiar, safe territory. At first his hands flew up to grab her wrists, his body stiffening, as if he was going to stop her.

She froze, stopping in her ministrations, fearful that he was going to push her away.

But no, now his hands were clutching at her, desperate, wanting more, needing relief that only Theresa could give. And she would. Because she wanted to.

She couldn't make A.J. Medena go away, she couldn't make his family perfect, but she knew she could make Ryan happy for just a little while. And really, that was enough. It was enough to know that he still had some happiness. It was enough to know that Theresa did everything she could.

She bit back the urge to whisper to him, to soothe him, to tell him somebody still cared. Because she knew there was no better way to drive him away.

Instead, she told him with her body, with her hands, and he seemed to understand.

She listened to his sounds for the pleasure, the joy, and when she heard it, felt it, she was satisfied, too.

She had done her part.

She had done enough.


	5. The Business

"Therese? That you?"

Theresa turned to the hallway mirror and checked her hair one more time, pulling out a stray leaf, which she stored in her pocket. She tucked her hair neatly behind her ear before making her way into the living room. "Hi, Ma."

"Where've you been?"

She shrugged. "Out." She made her way to her room and dropped her purse amid the clutter on her dresser before returning to the living room where her mother sat on the couch in front of three large baskets of laundry. "Need help?"

"Always," Eva said. She pointed. "You can start with your own things. Where do you get so many clothes? I don't understand."

Theresa smiled as she settled into the chair and reached for the basket. Did she want to push it? Did she not want to push it? She settled for the push. It was her mother, after all. And it would naturally start well, because Eva always liked to hear about Ryan. "I just saw Ryan," she said casually.

As expected, her mother's face brightened. "Oh? How is he?"

"He's okay." She paused and licked her lips. She focused on the t-shirt in her lap as she tucked the sleeves in. "Mama, did you know Juana's husband moved in with them?"

Eva pursed her lips silently for a moment, and Theresa stared at her, aghast.

"You knew!" She threw the folded shirt to the ground, and was annoyed when it landed perfectly.

"You hear things," Eva said, distant as she dug around in the laundry basket, not looking at Theresa. "Around."

Theresa's jaw dropped as she pulled a sundress from her pile with a great jerk. "I can't believe you didn't tell me!"

"I thought you knew, or you'd at least find out," her mother admitted.

Theresa leaned back in the chair in a huff, letting the sundress in her arms fall over her lap, unfolded. "Like Ryan ever tells me anything."

"Well," Eva said as she considered this, "he's a private person. Some people are just like that. He takes after his mother, you know she's the same way."

Eva was always one to defend Ryan. So typical. In her eyes, he could do no wrong. In a way, it was sometimes infuriating. "Mom," she said, leaning forward. "Juana hated him."

Eva's eyes flitted down as she reached for the next item in the basket. "Did she."

Theresa gave a short, low laugh. "And now he's living with Ryan. With Ryan! I don't believe it, it's like one situation gets better, and another-"

"Theresa," her mother interrupted, firmly. "Don't."

"Don't _what_?"

"_Don't_ get involved. It's not your family. It's Ryan's. If he's not saying anything, he doesn't want you to know, sweetie."

She shook her head, dark strands flopping around her face. "I don't care what he wants."

"Is that so?" Eva asked, peering up at her.

"You know what I mean." She glanced at her wrists. She hoped Eva wouldn't ask about the slowly fading red marks on them, left from Ryan's clenching hands. Not a subject she wanted to broach with her mother, no matter how much Eva loved Ryan.

"Theresa? And I say this in the most loving way possible. Mind your own business."

Her head snapped up. She glared across the living room. "Ryan _is_ my business."

"No," Eva said gently. "No, he's not, sweetie. He's got his own life, and his own problems, and he'll tell you what he wants to tell you."

Theresa scooted forward in her chair, leaning closer to her mother. "Do you know that Brandon Medena told me to fuck off last week? That's exactly what he said to me, Mama, he said 'Fuck you, bitch'. Swear to god. Little Brandon. Where do you think he got that from? Elmo's World?"

Eva shook her head. "Theresa-"

But Theresa pressed on. "And he hits Angelita, all the time. Every time she screams. He didn't get that from Juana. I know that. You know that."

"Arturo used to hit you all the time. It's something brothers do. There's a big difference between Brandon and Ryan, Therese."

"Is there?" Theresa asked, frustrated. "Are you sure?"

"Look at them! Brandon is a little boy. Ryan is almost a man."

Theresa didn't want to say that she had, she'd looked a lot at both Ryan and Brandon, and Ryan sometimes looked every bit as much of a little boy to her as Brandon did. Sometimes bigger, maybe, but sometimes even smaller. Sometimes, it was indeed hard for her to tell the difference.

"He still doesn't have a job."

"He's a dealer." They both turned to see Arturo wandering in, his shirt covered with stains from the garage.

"Hi, Turo," Theresa said grudgingly as her brother wiped his face on his filthy shirt.

"Arturo, that's not a nice thing to say," Eva scolded.

"'S true," Arturo mumbled. He nodded his head in the direction of the Atwoods' house. "You think I don't find this stuff out, Mom?"

Eva stopped her folding and stared at him, boring into him with her eyes. "I hope you don't." There was no ambiguity in her tone now.

Theresa looked back and forth between them. "Did you know he moved in with Ryan and Dawn?" she asked.

Arturo shrugged. "Yeah, I saw him over there the other day. He's a dealer, Ma. I'm telling you." He moved for the fridge and opened it, pulling out the water jug. He opened the cabinet and reached for a glass.

Theresa glanced over at her mother, who looked slightly more concerned. "Mom?"

Eva shook her head and busied herself with the laundry. "Stay out of it, Therese."

"He's my _best friend_, Mama."

"And I'm your mother. And I'm telling you, stay out of it."

"Fine," Theresa sighed. "I'll stay out of it." She glanced up.

"You, too," Eva said in Arturo's direction as he replaced the water jug in the fridge. "You have a home here. Don't make me take it away from you." It was one of her favorite threats, but she only pulled it out when she meant business. Like now.

"Fine," Arturo said dully, "I'll stay out of it, too." He huffed back towards his bedroom, clutching his glass in hand. "Dealin' right out of the house, I know it," he muttered as he disappeared.

Theresa watched him go, then looked back at her mother, who was folding just a little bit faster. She licked her lips again.

Her mother was right. Eva was always right. Even when Theresa argued with her, she knew her mother was right. Because that was her way.

Still, something about all of it just didn't feel... right.

* * *

Theresa found herself chewing idly on her coke straw as she waited by the food court for the girls. The Girls. She couldn't even remember the last time she had met up with the girls to go shopping. It just wasn't a part of her life anymore.

She'd known Becca and Lily since first grade and Mrs. Kitchens' class, but Lily had moved to Los Angeles halfway through fourth grade. Becca and Theresa had happily gone right on with their friendship in her absence, until tenth grade and the strengthening of the Theresa-Ryan friendship (or... or whatever it was), and the return of Lily, whose father had been appointed principal at the middle school. Over the past few months, as Theresa and Becca had started spending less time together, Becca had taken up with Lily almost as if she was a replacement. Theresa wasn't entirely bothered by that. She didn't want to see herself as expendable under any circumstances, but when it got her away from Becca, who had been increasingly obnoxious ever since puberty hit, she couldn't complain too much.

The hardest part now was spending any amount of time at all with the two of them together. Theresa didn't have the heart to tell them to fuck off, and so now she was stuck here by the food court, chewing her coke straw, dreading the impending afternoon.

She had to admit that it wasn't all bad - the food court was definitely her favorite place in the mall. So many choices – greasy Chinese noodles, or cheesy pizza, or steaming hot pretzels. However, the fact that she was here, waiting for –

"Theresa! Oh my _god!_"

-That...

She turned in the direction of Becca's shrieking and tried to smile as Becca, with Lily trailing on her heels, made her way across the food court. Of course they both arrived together. They'd probably been talking about her before they came.

"Where you _been_, girlfriend?" Becca asked, crushing Theresa in an embrace. Theresa winced.

"Oh, around," she said, ambiguous. She pulled back quickly.

"So we gonna eat or shop first?" Becca asked.

"I... don't know," Theresa said. "You guys?"

Lily rolled her eyes, her long eyelashes fluttering. "I'm not shopping." She bent to study a nail that looked perfect, though from the way she was holding her hand, she seemed to think it was chipped somehow.

"Lily has to get a job," Becca explained. "Her parents cut her allowance when school ended."

"No way." Theresa couldn't help but feel a small pang of schadenfreude. Lily was, after all, one of the only financially solid girls at Chino Hills. She always had better clothes, better hair, better toys. Not much better. But better. Principal of the middle school was no slouch job, and her mother worked, too. It was more than most of their classmates.

Lily pouted. "So I guess I'm just browsing today." It was all Theresa could do not to let loose with one of the dozens of comebacks that instantly popped into her head.

"I need summer sandals, though," Becca said, smacking her gum.

"I need jeans," Theresa added, enjoying a brief superiority over Lily. She had babysitting money to spend. That is, provided she could find jeans on sale. "I can't wear shorts to the restaurant this summer."

"Hey, so how much does that restaurant pay?" Lily asked, reaching up to tuck her arm around her purse.

Theresa stared at her. "You? Want to work pizza."

"Maybe," Lily said defensively.

Theresa shrugged. It wasn't worth lying about. She wasn't big into the lying thing. She didn't want to say it, but she had to say it. So she took a deep breath and said it. "Well, I guess they're hiring for another cashier."

"Could you put a good word in?" Lily asked, her eyes lighting up.

Theresa tried to summon enthusiasm. "I guess."

"Your hair looks adorable," Lily said, staring up and down Theresa's loose curls. "By the way."

Theresa lifted a hand to her hair self-consciously. "Thanks." She had almost forgotten what it was like to hang out with girls. To talk about hair. And clothes. And –

"So," Becca said, leaning in and beaming around her gum, her big dark pink lips looking slightly misplaced on her mouth. "Everybody wants to know. Are you and Ryan, like, dating now, or what?"

-Boys.

Theresa forced a laugh as the girls started for the shops. She tripped behind them to keep up. "Dating?"

"Yeah, you know what dating is," Becca said scornfully, twitching her head as she said it.

Theresa shot her a look. "Yeah, uh huh, and it's not what me and Ryan are doing."

"Which one's Ryan again?" Lily asked, skipping to keep up. "Is he the big guy with the glasses?"

"No," Becca said, giggling. "That's Ryan Morgan. Ryan Atwood. Kinda short, blond hair." She gestured a completely pointless gesture, apparently to indicate his height. "Dresses like he just walked out of the hood. Kid don't know he's white."

Theresa glared at her. Becca was one to talk. She still thought she was black, and probably ninety-five percent of her ancestors were from Europe, judging by her complexion. "Oh, come on. Like every other white guy at school doesn't do the exact same thing."

Becca shrugged. "I'm just sayin'."

Theresa narrowed her eyes. "Sayin'... what?"

Becca avoided her look. "Sayin', do you know who I mean now, Lily?" Becca asked impatiently.

Lily wrinkled her nose as the girls approached the escalator. "No."

"Anybody want to stop at the bookstore?" Theresa asked suddenly.

"The bookstore?" Becca asked, puzzled. "Why?"

Theresa was quickly reaching the end of her rope. "Cause I heard they got a great shoe sale, right? For _books_! Jesus. Books. People!"

"You want to buy a book?" Lily stared at Theresa like she was a creature from another planet. Theresa was beginning to remember why Becca liked the girl so much. And why she, on the other hand, did not.

"I just like looking at them is all," Theresa said, glancing away.

"Or," Becca said, "Maybe we could split up and go look at CDs while you do that?"

Theresa started to say that she wanted to look at CDs too, but then she stopped. "Okay," she said. "Great idea."

She found herself taking a deep, relieving breath as she made her way through the fiction aisle. Was this the way it would be from now on? These girls? They were like alien creatures to her. She actually missed Arturo's fart jokes, and Trey's constant automobile babble, and sparring with Eddie, and Ryan with his complete lack of understanding of female social graces. She didn't understand girls any more.

She wondered if she ever really had.

Once she'd scanned the magazine rack and lowered her blood pressure a bit, Theresa slid across the mall corridor to join the girls as they emerged from the record store. "Need to see anything here?" Becca asked, clutching her shopping bag to her chest.

"No," Theresa lied with a thin smile, "where to next?"

Next was Payless. And then the Gap, the sale rack in the back. And Theresa was starting to feel tired, and poor, and insignificant. She could never shop for too long. Maybe she was supposed to have been born a boy. Maybe she really was a boy and didn't know it. Maybe she was one of those gender oddities she read about in Newsweek...

They were on their way down the escalator bound for the Limited when Becca suddenly cried out, "Hey, there he is!"

"Who?" Lily asked, irritated.

"Ryan."

"Morgan?" Lily asked.

"Atwood."

"Where?" Theresa glanced up from where she'd been rummaging in her purse. She followed Becca's finger to where the Atwood brothers were riding up the escalator, traveling towards them at a brisk pace, and felt her stress start to disappear as she recognized them. "Ryan! Hey! Trey!" She waved.

The guys looked up from the CD liner notes they'd been reading together, Trey standing on the step beneath Ryan to even their height. Trey was the first to see her and wave back.

"Oh, that kid," Theresa heard Lily say behind her in a bored, soft tone.

"Stay there," Theresa shouted at Ryan as they passed. "We'll come up."

"What?" he yelled back.

She clutched the moving rail and leaned over. "Just don't move!"

He shook his head in her at amusement as she rode past. He leaned over to point at them and whisper something to Trey, who laughed.

At the bottom of the escalator she rounded the corner swiftly and barged up, taking the stairs two at a time, in hot pursuit of the Atwoods. She could hear the girls charging up at her heels, but she didn't care. She wove her way around an elderly couple and a group of middle schoolers, bumping into a little kid with her purse by accident. "Uh, sorry." She charged on.

"Off today?" she asked Ryan as she reached the top, breathless.

"Yeah," he said, shifting his weight as he studied the girls gathering behind her. She followed his eyes to see that he was watching Lily closely.

It hit her that she was supposed to do something here, socially. What was it? "Oh. Trey, and Ryan, you guys remember Becca, right? Do you know Lily?"

"Uh, hi," Lily said with a small, careless wave.

"I know you," Becca said to Trey, pointing. "You had that party, right? With the keg?"

Trey immediately brightened. "Yeah! Actually, that was me." He paused and considered this, racking his brain. "Well. There's a lot of parties. But I'm pretty sure it was me."

Theresa cast a sideways glance at Becca, then decided to ignore it. "I didn't think I'd see you guys here."

From the uncomfortable look Ryan gave Trey, she immediately had a feeling something was up. Not a feeling. She knew. The Atwoods were up to something. And she knew that whatever it was, she probably didn't want to ever know. If Trey was involved...

"You know how my brother is with a sale," Trey said cheerfully.

"Oh, do I ever," Theresa said. She offered Ryan a joking grin, but he wasn't looking at her.

"He's kidding," Ryan explained to Lily, aside.

"I figured," she said, with a quick nod, glancing across the mall towards the cookie bakery, away from Ryan.

Theresa looked to Lily, and then back at Ryan. What...?

"Right. Uh huh. I know you," Theresa said, leaning in and cuffing Ryan on the elbow. "You know you'd rather be checking out the bookstore. Don't let him boss you around."

"Too late for that," Ryan said, offering a weak attempt at a smile. But it failed. Theresa glanced away from him, not comprehending.

"So speaking of parties," Trey was saying, "we got one Saturday night, ladies. Anybody?"

"The thing at your place?" Theresa heard herself saying. Great. The last thing she wanted was Becca-and-Lily at a Trey Atwood party.

"For you beautiful girls, the booze is free," Trey was saying. "You can't pass that up, am I right?"

Theresa glanced back at Ryan, who was still eying Lily. This was not good.

"Maybe," Becca said, rocking back and forth. "You gonna be there?"

Theresa's head whipped back around to Becca, who had inched closer to Trey.

Trey folded his arms and regarded her with a long stare. "Only if you are, toots."

'Toots'? Theresa met Ryan's eyes and could only wait half a second before releasing a large guffaw.

"Excuse me?" Trey turned to her, annoyed, missing Ryan's grin and head shake behind him.

Theresa shook her head and coughed. "Something... in my throat." She pointed and cleared her throat again.

"So we'll see you there then?" Ryan asked. Theresa started to respond. But his eyes weren't on her. They were on Lily.

She had held Ryan only a day ago; hours before, she had been the only person who could bring him pleasure. But was it anything a million other girls couldn't do? Theresa didn't have anything Lily didn't have. And Lily had a lot that Theresa was lacking.

A lot.

"Guess you will," Theresa said.

"Great." Ryan smiled, the smile that still didn't reach his eyes.

"We gotta go, uh, meet some guys," Trey said, speaking directly to Becca. "So, sorry. But – Saturday awaits."

"Saturday," Becca said with a smile.

With half a wave, Theresa and the girls started back down the escalator. Theresa found herself suddenly wishing she were going in the opposite direction. With the guys.

"So that's Ryan Atwood?" Lily asked in disbelief, casting a look back over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, girl, but you can totally do better."

Theresa turned to her, annoyed. "Yeah? What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's not all that cute, really. And he just seems kinda... slow."

Slow? Slow? Oh, that was rich, coming from Becca's new best friend. "You don't know him," she snapped. "You don't even know me."

"Yeah, but I do," Becca said. "You could do better. She's right."

"Excuse me?" Theresa asked, turning on her.

"Well, he's not your boyfriend, right? You said."

Theresa clenched her fingers into a fist and unclenched them, stretching them out. She hadn't been in a fight since eighth grade. "No."

"Then what do you care? Chill."

"He's my best friend," Theresa pointed out. "I care." She glanced nervously at Becca. Once, Becca had been her best friend. No more. But Becca didn't seem to care any more than Theresa really did.

"Sale at Limited!" Lily squealed, and charged in the direction of the store. Becca took off at her heels, giggling in her wake. And Theresa followed behind, her hands shoved back in her pockets, in no particular rush to catch up.


	6. The Music Box

Chapter Six: The Music Box

A/N Oops, I was wrong in my first entry. The song is actually by Meredith Willson. Don't know where the 'y' came from. And thanks especially to the fb'ers on FF.net for some of the funniest feedback I've ever gotten on a story. Ryan's a sixteen-year-old boy, of course he'll do anything to get some ass! –Kate Monster

_"Twenty-five Ways to Drive Your Man Crazy"_

Theresa scanned the list on the glossy pages of her Cosmo and then flipped the page, squinting at the fashion spread. All the girls in these pages were crazy thin. Like Lily. Unhealthy. Disgusting, really. But then, some guys seemed to go for that. Imagine.

She slammed the magazine shut in disgust and started to think about maybe having a bedtime snack.

"Theresa?"

"In here, Mama!" She shoved the Cosmo under her pillow. Eva hated the magazine with a passion, ever since Theresa had accidentally left one on the coffee table once. Big mistake. Her mother actually read it. Never again. Eva and Cosmopolitan Magazine were not of the same persuasion.

Eva opened the door, leaning in the doorframe. "I'm looking at a house tomorrow. Over on the west side."

"Oh…" Eva had been looking at lots of houses. She was picky. It seemed like there was a new one every couple of days.

"Do you want to come?"

She never brought Arturo or Theresa along. Theresa licked her lips. "Okay, why?"

Eva shrugged and tilted her head. "I don't know, I thought you might like this one."

"I get off work at three."

"Okay," she said, nodding. "Okay, I'll call the agent back, try to get a time after that."

"Sure," Theresa said with a weak smile as her mother pulled the door closed behind her.

She would have her driver's license in another month, it was okay. Really. No need to be upset about moving. And Eva couldn't find anything she liked anyway. They were all too small, too ugly, in a bad neighborhood, too smelly, too old. Theresa doubted she'd find anything she liked. The truth was that they couldn't afford what she wanted. But Theresa wouldn't be the one to tell her that-

She was startled from her thoughts by a tapping on the window, and she threw her legs over the side of the bed. She tiptoed carefully across the carpet. It was drizzling rain outside, but the sound was too loud to be rain. And too familiar. She knew that sound.

She opened the window. There, on the other side of the screen, Ryan was pressed up against the house, trying to stay dry beneath the eaves.

"It's raining, you fool," Theresa said with a sharp laugh.

"I see that," he said, irritated.

Her fingers scrabbled to unlatch the screen. Ryan caught it as she lowered it out, and set it on the ground. He took a step back to get his momentum up before charging at the window with a great leap.

She caught his arm. "Oof!"

"Hey!" He slipped a little, halfway in. "Ow." His fingers fumbled on the windowsill.

"Watch-"

The better part of his weight came through the window in a great boost, and both of them collapsed to the carpet in a fit of hushed giggles and snorts. Her shoulder brushed his chest and she felt the incessant pounding of his heart, so much louder and stronger than normal.

She pried herself up, tossing his leg aside. "Oh, no, now look at this," she groaned, looking at the mud smears on her windowsill and floor. "You gonna clean this up?" She slid the window back down, cutting off the rain.

"Yeah, later." She sensed his damp presence behind her, and then his arms turned her around, pulling her in for a deep kiss. She wanted to protest, argue, but she couldn't, not when he-

"Mmm." She broke off the kiss. "Okay, you are _sopping_ wet."

"Really, I hadn't noticed." He tried to pull her back in, but she pushed away. He was breathing heavily, as if he was in a hurry.

"Hold on, I'll get you some clothes from Turo's room."

Ryan brushed water droplets from his arms and looked up at her, trying for innocent. He did almost have a wet puppy look to him. "Yeah? You don't have to do that."

She stared at him. "Nice try."

"What?" he protested, keeping his expression blank. Oh, but he was good.

"Uh huh. I'm on to you. And hey. My mom's still up." She pointed to the closet.

Ryan groaned, slumping down. "Are you kidding me?"

"No. Get."

He reluctantly arranged himself in the closet and she closed the door on him, smirking as she did.

Arturo's bedroom door was closed. She knocked softly.

"Hold on – who is it?" A scuffling sound from inside. Theresa blinked as she leaned in closer. Was he, too…?

"It's me."

"Oh. Come in."

She opened the door just in time to see him shoving something that looked like a bag of sugar under his pillow. She narrowed her eyes.

"What do you want, Theresa?" His voice was impatient.

She blinked away from the pillow. "Oh. Want. Yeah. Can I borrow a shirt, some pants?"

"Why?" he asked suspiciously.

She angled her head towards her room, giving him a helpless look.

"Oh! Right. Yeah." He threw his legs over the side of the bed and ambled for the dresser, where he started to root around in the drawer.

She folded her arms, watching him dig. "What were you doing just now?"

He stopped for a moment. "Nothing." He resumed his search.

"Turo." She glanced past him at his bed again.

He shoved the clothes at her. "Hey, glass houses, okay? Get the hell out of here!" He pushed her gently out the door before closing it on her face.

In the hallway, Theresa briefly cocked her head as she reflected on the brief exchange, then shrugged and flounced back to her room. It was like Ryan and Trey at the mall. Better not to know. Better not to think too much. It was what her mother always said. And her mother was always right.

She pulled the door to her room shut before releasing Ryan from the closet.

"Okay, it was getting a little stuffy in there," he complained, fanning his face with his hand.

"Yeah, well. Here."

He took the clothes and held them for a moment before raising his eyebrows at her.

"What? Oh." She turned around, rolling her eyes as she did. "Like I haven't seen you naked before."

"What, a little decorum never hurt anybody?" His husky voice cracked just a little.

"Oh, like you came over here for decorum..." Theresa laughed gently, then stopped. She could see him in the mirror. Taut muscles, all nicely lined, well-maintained… what was that on his upper arm? Some kind of mark, fresh...

His eyes met hers in the mirror. "Hey! Quit peekin', why don't you?" He struggled to pull the shirt over his head.

She beamed and turned around. "You're right, you know. You're nothing to write home about."

From his expression, it looked as if he actually believed her for a moment. "I'm kidding! Jesus."

"Ryan, actually," he said, grinning and moving in.

She grinned back at him, feeling her defenses quickly melting away. "You are on a mission to erase that word from my vocabulary, aren't you?"

"Well," he said, considering, "Bet your mom would be happy if I did."

"Yeah," Theresa said, "but you and I do a lot of things that don't make my mom happy, right?" She fell back onto the bed with a bounce, taking his wrist as she fell and snapping him forward.

She closed her eyes as their mouths made contact, nipping, seeking-

Hard. Hungry. Hot.

Hunting.

Something was different, something was not right.

She pushed him back. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," he mumbled into her mouth, craning to reach. "Why?"

Theresa giggled and squirmed as his hands moved under her shirt. Did it really matter when he was touching her like that? It most certainly did not. "…Never mind."

They didn't really need a label. Boyfriend, girlfriend, naming things like that would be so typical for Becca, or for Lily. Not for Theresa. She could enjoy this for what it was, she and Ryan, alone, together, moving quietly on top of her bedspread, building, accelerating, nothing outside this room mattered-

"Theresa, the realtor – oh!"

Ryan jumped off of her like a shot from a cannon, springing to attention. Startled, Theresa scrambled away from him to a seated position at the edge of the bed. She hung her head as she glanced at Eva with shame.

"Hi… Ryan," Eva said haltingly, putting her hands together and trying to wring them without being too obvious about it.

He waved, avoiding her eyes, glancing out the window, guilty.

For a moment, there was silence. Theresa straightened her pajama top. She tugged at the bottom to make sure it covered all of her stomach. She heard Ryan take a deep breath of air. Eva paused in the door, waiting.

"Theresa," she finally said, "the realtor will meet us at four."

"Great," Theresa said, sounding far more enthusiastic than she felt.

Eva stared at them. Theresa was afraid to look up until her mother finally spoke again.

"Does anyone... need anything? Food?"

"No, we're great," Theresa said again, still staring into her lap.

"Ryan, how is your mother?"

"Good, she's good," he said, clearly puzzled.

"Send her," Eva said, "my regards."

She pulled the door closed.

Theresa turned to Ryan and saw her own amazement mirrored in his expression. "Did that just happen?"

"I don't know, but I think maybe I'll use the front door next time?"

"Yeah. Do that." They broke out into a relieved giggle. She took his arm and placed it on top of her breast, but he pulled away.

"What?" she asked, irritated.

"Your mom..." His voice trailed off.

Theresa snorted. "Loves you. Please. Did you just see that?"

He sighed. "It just doesn't... feel right."

"What? Once she says it's okay for you to be here you lose interest?" Theresa pulled back and stared at him.

"Theresa. Come on. You know she's not telling us to, I mean, you know, she's still your mom and all, you know what she thinks, and the church thing, and maybe it never mattered before-" Ryan stared at her, looking lost. Helpless. "What did she mean, realtor?"

"Oh..." Theresa tucked her hair behind her ear and glanced away. She tried to think of an excuse, but she couldn't. "She's been looking. At houses. To buy."

"Wait..." Again with the smile that didn't meet his eyes. "You mean you might be _moving_?"

"No – I mean, she wants to, but she'll never find anything." She scooted closer to him. "And even if she does, it doesn't matter. We won't be far away."

"Yeah..." He didn't sound convinced.

She scooted her hand across the blanket, inching for his thigh.

He pulled his legs to his chest, just out of reach. "Look, I'm not having a good day – d'you think we could just... I dunno, sleep?"

She closed her eyes, curling her fingers into a loose fist on the blanket. "Ryan..."

"I really want to sleep here tonight. Please?" He looked lost. Sad and lost. Which only made her wonder... "Just sleep. Really."

"Is it A.J.?" she asked, quietly.

"Naw, naw," he said, looking away. "Kind of – not really. No."

She sighed and scooted up to the pillows, wriggling under the covers. She held them out, offering him a spot beneath them and he crawled under obligingly. And then promptly turned away from her.

She wanted to touch him, pull him close to her, cuddle him, warm him, not let him go. But there was something – his stiffness, the tension in his shoulders, in his jaw, that made her pause.

She reached over to flip the lamp off, and found herself in the darkness, listening to the light rain outside her window, listening to Ryan breathing against the silence.

"Now that we know my mom loves you," Theresa mused, "we can probably do this more often."

He snorted. "Yeah, little does she know... Theresa?"

She bit her lip, settling against the pillow, studying his closely cropped hair, smushed into the pillow from the back. "Yeah?"

"...Thanks."

Uh huh. "You're welcome."

Maybe he'd get the courage to say it. Maybe it would happen. Theresa held her breath. Even though she knew better. She released it.

Because she knew. This was only convenience, after all. It wasn't love. Friendship. Loyalty. Habit. Not love. Love was something else.

She rolled over and turned off the bedside lamp, then rolled back over to stare at him in the flickering sodium glow from the street lamp outside. Ryan's shoulders slowly rose up and down off the sheet, the comforter pushed down. The knot of his choker had slipped to the side and hung just off his shoulder. It was right that they should be able to do this – wasn't it?

He rolled over to face her and opened his eyes. "I can feel you, you know."

"What?"

"Watching!"

She sighed. "I can't sleep..."

He propped himself up on an elbow, glaring down at her. She could see the red marks on his arm now, short stripes. "Well, how'm I supposed to sleep? I gotta work in the morning." He noticed her staring and moved his arm away, shifting his weight. The bedframe creaked beneath him.

"Yeah, me, too," she said, returning his glare with one of his own. "But you don't see me tumbling into your room all muddy and wet and jumping in your bed."

Ryan closed his eyes. "Theresa…"

"No, no," she said, feeling morally superior all of a sudden, "you just do your thing, and I'll… I'll try and sleep." She faked a smile.

He smirked at her. "You are such a martyr, you know that?"

"I do." She flopped onto her back. "I guess I'll just have to try and get what rest I can, then."

He rubbed his fingers together. "Yeah, uh huh. You know what this is?"

"The world's smallest violin," she said in unison with him. "Yeah, yeah." She shook her head ruefully and closed her eyes, trying to tune out Ryan and his presence and the damp, salty scent of his warm body in the bed beside her, and all the strange, frightening, exciting thoughts that it stirred in her.

She could sense his motion in the darkness, felt the mattress shifting, bouncing softly, as he turned around; she could hear him leaning over the side of the bed. She could feel everything about him in the dark bedroom. She felt like she could sense his very soul, even though she knew it was ridiculous. Nobody could really see inside Ryan, not even her.

He settled back into the bed, leaning up against the headboard, sitting upright. She heard a familiar soft, creaking noise, and then the quiet tinkling.

_Good night, my someone…_

"Ryan…" she groaned.

"It's your music box," he offered. She could hear the smile in his voice.

"I know. Put it back."

_Good night, my love…_

"Won't it help you sleep?"

She struggled to sit up, brushing the hair back off her forehead. "You'll break it."

"I won't."

_Sleep tight, my someone…_

"You will. Knowing you. That's special, too, my mom got it for me as an opening night gift when we did Music Man last year."

_Sleep tight, my love._

"I remember," he said, irritated. "I was there when she gave it to you."

But he hadn't been in the show. Theresa had been onstage, all by herself, because Ryan had decided he was too old to do musicals. She was onstage with a cast of thirty-three, most of whom were older than Ryan, but she was still alone. Playing Zaneeta Shinn opposite a Tommy Djilas who she could have cared less about. Ryan kept insisting he couldn't dance, but he would have made a decent Tommy. He could have faked it. And he didn't.

"Turn it off."

_Our star is shining its brightest light_

"I can't! Can I?" he asked, his voice desperate.

_For good night, my love, for good night_

"No. You have to wait it out. Don't-" Theresa sighed. "Just don't… break it."

"It's a lullaby, isn't it?" he asked quietly. "It's supposed to put you to sleep?"

_Sweet dreams, be yours, dear, if dreams there be_

She paused. "That was my favorite song in the show."

The lullaby sung to a distant lover, the unknown presence from the future. She bit her lip. It wasn't the song she wanted to hear right now.

"I remember…" he started, and then stopped.

_Sweet dreams to carry you close to me_

"I remember the words to this," Ryan said.

Theresa licked her lips, and then opened them to softly sing along. "I wish they may, and I wish they might, so good night, my love, good night…"

His voice rose sharply above the tinny sound in the darkness.

"The show was stupid. Sorry. I liked Charlie Brown better. And not just because I was in it."

"The show was _not_ stupid," Theresa said. "And why are we arguing about this now?"

_True love can be whispered from heart to heart _

__

_When lovers are parted, they say_

"But this song was good," Ryan added defensively. "Or… it was okay."

_But I must depend on a wish and a star_

_As long as my heart doesn't know who you are_

"Okay? That's great," she snorted. "God, I loved this song. I couldn't believe Mama found it in a music box. She must have looked everywhere for it, so don't you _dare_ break it."

"How did this go again?" Ryan asked. "I remember, okay?" He began to softly sing along. "Sweet dreams, be yours dear, if dreams there be…"

Theresa joined him, singing above him in her alto voice, gently seeking out the harmony. "Sweet dreams to carry you close to me…"

Their voices fell silent together, trailing off as the music box slowed, fading, dying.

_I wish… they may… and… _

_I wish… _

_They… _

_might… _

The music stopped. All she could hear was her own soft breath and Ryan's breath, fading off into sleep, unable to finish the song or the thought.

She inched up off the bed to look over. The music box was still sitting on his chest, slowly rising up and down. He really was gonna break it. Gently, she reached over and removed it, and watched as his hands slipped loosely to the sides.

She stared at the music box in her hands, at the two plastic lovers that spun around to the music. The music box had it all wrong. The song wasn't about lovers together. It was about lovers apart. Lovers who don't know each other. Lovers who might never meet. Who designed this thing? Did they even know what they were designing?

She hummed the last notes of the song to herself in a soft tone, slowly letting the notes drift out of her throat.

_So good night, my love, good night_

"Good night, Ryan," she whispered, but the only sound that she heard was his thick breathing. Ryan was asleep.

She set the music box on her bedside table and turned over, facing away from Ryan, waiting for the soft, welcoming feeling of sleep to settle over her.

_Good night..._


	7. The Training

"Now what do I press?"

For the fifteenth time in under an hour, Theresa found herself counting to ten to keep from ripping the girl a new one right here.

"Is the order complete?" she said patiently to Lily.

"Yeah?"

"So press 'order complete'. Hey, Manny," Theresa turned to the window separating them from the kitchen, as much to talk to Manny as not to talk to Lily, "You got my large pepperoni yet?"

"It's coming, Mami," Manny grinned at her, showing his gap teeth as he tossed a mound of dough into the air.

She put a hand on her hip. "Yeah, show-off, it's _been_ coming for fifteen minutes."

Theresa turned back to Lily, who looked confused. "Now what, Lily?" She was almost afraid to ask.

"Did my order go through?"

Theresa leaned over and glanced at the screen. "Yes, Lily. The screen that says 'order sent'? Means it's been sent."

Lily reached to bite her nails.

"Stop – wow. Whoa. Lily. You can't-" Theresa sighed as Lily eyed her warily. "Look. It's not that hard."

"Easy for you to say! You know this stuff!"

Theresa decided not to mention that she had learned it in half a day, while Lily was well into her third shift. Instead, she turned back to the kitchen again.

"Hey," Theresa said, "Gary, can Lily watch me for awhile again? The rush is dying off now."

The manager poked his head through the kitchen window. "Sure." He paused. "...Please." Lily looked distressed as he popped back into the kitchen.

For a moment, Theresa felt slightly awful. She had woken up at 4:30 to find Ryan missing, and somehow hadn't been able to fall back asleep. So of course she was more than a tad grouchy. It wasn't Lily's fault. Well, not entirely.

"You'll get it, don't worry." Theresa tried to sound convincing.

Lily grimaced as she wandered to Theresa's register.

"Next person?" Theresa called, failing to muster enthusiasm. But the sole customer shook his head.

"Just waiting," he said.

Theresa pushed back from the counter. "Okay. Lily. What _don't_ you get?"

"I get it! I think. Until I have to _do_ it."

And she thought _Ryan_ was slow?

Theresa shook her head. "Let's just – relax for a minute." She hesitated, almost afraid to finish the thought. But whatever. "Rest your brain."

Lily sighed and pulled at her Pizza King t-shirt. "I must look really stupid."

"Oh, no..." Theresa said out of habit. "No, Lily..."

"I guess I'm good at school and bad at work," Lily sighed.

"Just focus," Theresa suggested. "Once you get the groove of it, you know – there's a reason why they give this job to us girls." Argh. She couldn't help it. She would always take the side of the underdog, even when the underdog was Lily.

"I thought it was cause the customers liked our boobs," Lily said. It took Theresa a moment to realize Lily was making a joke. That was a new one.

"Huh – oh! Ha! Yeah," Theresa said, forcing herself to laugh. "See, now you're getting it. Customer service. Literally."

"I wish." Lily reached for her Diet Coke, hidden under the counter, and handed the regular Coke to Theresa, who took a slow, refreshing sip. "It just seems so pointless," Lily said. "I mean, all this work and no tips? What am I gonna be able to save, anyway?"

Theresa blinked at her. "All my Pizza King money goes to savings," she admitted. "To help my mom. It's my babysitting money I get to spend."

"Really?" Lily wrinkled her nose, which, Theresa noticed for the first time, was obnoxiously cute, all tiny and freckled and pointy and disgusting.

"You're lucky," Theresa said. "You actually can spend yours."

"I know," Lily said as she stared down at her Diet Coke uncomfortably.

"But hey," Theresa said, "think of it this way – a lot of guys will get to see your boobs." She glanced away so that Lily couldn't gage the comedy, or lack thereof.

"Order up!" Manny shouted out, and Theresa reached for the pizza.

"Large with pepperoni?" she asked. The owner stepped up to claim his pizza before scuttling off, leaving the store deserted.

Lily pulled at her Pizza King shirt again. "Yeah, ever since my boobs came in this year, I can't fight the guys off with a stick."

Theresa eyed her critically. "And this is a problem?"

"Well, they're like – like puppies sometimes, you know? So hormonal. They just want one thing. You know, whatever you and Ryan have, at least you're friends."

Theresa's head shot up. "It's not like having a boyfriend, though."

"How is it different?" Lily stared at her.

"Well," Theresa said, considering. "There's – no. I mean, we're not – it's not romantic. We don't have those _feelings_ for each other."

Lily laughed. "So you're like an old married couple."

"Wh – no!" Theresa's jaw hit the floor. "No. Different. Very." Theresa was sure of that, even if she didn't really know any old married couples.

"But you do have sex, right?"

Theresa stared at her. "Why would you think that?"

Lily suddenly busied herself with straightening the plasticware. "...No reason."

"Lily."

She stopped and turned back, wringing her hands again. "Becs said," she said helplessly.

"Course she did," Theresa grumbled. She had never really told her anything, but she wasn't surprised she'd reached that conclusion. Even if it was the right one, Theresa was still annoyed.

"It's not like having a boyfriend," she said again. "I mean, I can still go out with whoever. He's not possessive or anything."

"And do you? Go out?"

"I don't even go out with Ryan," Theresa admitted. She was growing more and more annoyed the further this went on. "Look. It's my business, okay? And Ryan – he can flirt with whoever he wants, _see_ whoever he wants, cause I don't _care_!" Coke spilled from the cup as she waved it on the last word. "Oops."

"I got it," Lily said, grabbing for a towel. "Well, damn girl, you clearly don't care about him at all."

"I don't," Theresa said firmly, watching Lily mop up the spilled soda. She somehow didn't feel motivated to jump in. "I mean, just-"

"...As a friend," Lily finished. "I got it. But – if you're so close, and you have good sex...?" She looked up, and Theresa kept her own face expressionless. "...Then... why aren't you together?"

Because he likes you better.

"Wouldn't want to destroy our friendship," Theresa said, too quickly.

_Because_ _he wants you, in all of your snobby, thin, unreachable glory._

"Oh," Lily said. "I see."

"Uh huh." Theresa frowned. "Look, you don't have to like him, but I do-" Theresa stopped and glanced at the door. Another customer. "Okay, now, focus, okay?" she hissed to Lily before breaking into a big grin. "Hi. How can I help you?"

* * *

She was walking her bike along the road when she heard the car honking at her. Feeling somewhat wary, Theresa turned around to see and was surprised to see Arturo waving at her from the window of an unfamiliar ride. A LeBaron?

"Whose car is this?" she asked.

"Mine," he said. "I sold the Cadillac for it. What do you think?"

She studied the exterior. "It's nice."

He inclined his head. "So get in already."

She obeyed, carefully setting her bike in his trunk before hopping in to the front seat. "Where are you coming back from?" She searched for the seatbelt and finally found it, reaching across to fasten herself in with a click.

"Trey's house." He shook his head in amazement. "That guy. He's so lucky. He's like the luckiest person in the world. He should be dead ten times over. He should be."

"God protects fools, small children, and stupid people named Trey Atwood," Theresa agreed. "So what'd the jackass do this time?"

Arturo studied the street ahead of them as they made their way towards home. "Nothing, nothing. Just – I don't get it. Anybody else in his shoes would be so dead right now. Lucky bastard."

She couldn't disagree. "Well, he has Ryan to look out for him. And you."

Arturo coughed. "Yeah. In this case? Didn't matter. Lucky bastard. Lucky, lucky, lucky."

"Okay." Theresa took a deep breath. "You know what?" She twisted towards him in her seat. "I'm not twelve years old anymore, Arturo."

He inclined his head as he steered the car around a turn. "No, you're fifteen. So?"

"So I don't get it. What'd I ever do to be the stupid kid nobody clues in?"

The car settled to rest at a stop sign. He stared at her. "Is that really what you feel like?"

She shrugged uncomfortably. "Sometimes."

"Well, you are. So enjoy it." He drove off across the intersection, leaning back to enjoy his position.

"Arturo!"

"I mean it." He had that fierce look on his face all of a sudden, the one that sometimes scared her a little. "This is how the world works, okay? You let me and Trey mind our own business. And we'll take good care of you."

"Wait. I do not want Trey Atwood taking care of me." Something was very wrong with that picture.

Arturo clicked his tongue. "You _know_ what I meant!"

"I do," she admitted. "Jesus, Arturo." She stopped, almost expecting a reaction out of habit. When she didn't get one, she pressed on. "You're so over-protective."

"Yeah? Well. Good. Glad I am. Look, we have important business to worry about, but you don't. Enjoy it."

Theresa pouted. "I'm not a baby."

"Yes, you are. Baby, baby, baby."

"Turo," she whined again.

"See?"

She searched for something to throw at him and came up empty.

"You're a girl, okay? Be a girl. Do girl stuff. Let us be the guys."

Be a girl. She licked her lips and glanced in the rearview mirror at a glimpse of herself. She wanted Ryan to stop thinking of her like one of the guys. Arturo wanted her to be a girl. She could be a girl. She really had been born one, after all, no matter how she felt.

Be a girl. That was definitely something Theresa could try for once.


	8. The Party

Theresa straightened her black tank top, staring critically at her cleavage. She pushed at her chest, studying the effect of her new bra. Nice. The trick to it was getting out the front door without Eva seeing her, and then she'd be set...

"Turn around right now and march back to your room, young lady, you are not stepping foot outside this house in that."

She rolled her eyes and leaned her arms on the hallway table. "Arturo, give it up."

He folded his arms, blocking the exit to the living room in a threatening manner. "I'm not kidding. No sister of mine is going to a Trey Atwood party dressed like _that_."

She angled her shoulders suggestively. "Don't I look like a real woman?"

"Too real. Change. Now."

"No!"

"Then I'm not driving you to the party."

"Then I guess I'll bike over with Ryan."

He shook his head. "Don't you know what the boys will think of you in that top?"

"Uh huh. And it's exactly what I want them to think," she said with a somber expression.

"No way."

She pushed him gently out of the way as she started for the bathroom and her make-up collection. "I'm almost sixteen now, and I'm going to do my part to act it. Deal."

He hung in the doorway watching her apply her make-up. "Is it necessary for you to wear that much lipstick?"

"I'm not wearing half as much as Portia Blackwell does, and you were all over her."

He didn't blink. "Yeah. I was. And I don't want anybody all over _you_ like that."

"Portia Blackwell is somebody's sister too, ya know."

"Yeah, but not mine." A slight grin crossed his face at that.

She paused mid-eyeliner application and turned slowly to stare at him. "You're impossible."

The doorbell rang. "Yeah, yeah," Arturo groaned, going over to answer it. "If that's Ryan it's almost time to go, so get a move on."

She brushed a layer of blush across her cheeks and puckered her lips in the mirror before prancing out to the front hall.

"Whoa," Ryan said without thinking as she made her grand entrance. She briefly studied him up and down. As usual, nothing. He wasn't even wearing an open shirt, the usual sign that he was dressing up. Just a t-shirt, his regular two-layered jackets, and an older pair of pants. Like a fucking uniform. He had barely even bothered to comb his hair. The clothes were like an alarm, warning everybody to back off. Everybody except for Theresa.

She noticed his eyes inadvertently leaping to the dimple at the top of her tank, and she glanced away, not wanting to do anything to keep him from looking. She rather liked the attention. One little piece of clothing and the guys couldn't keep their eyes off. She liked it. It was minimalism. It was power. It was control.

She casually slipped her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, tilting her elbows back, hoping to accentuate the effect.

"So we're taking the new car?" Theresa asked, raising her eyebrows as she pranced past the boys into the front yard.

"Uh... yeah," Arturo said, and she glanced around to see him clocking Ryan's every ogle. "It's... around back."

She led the way, enjoying the eyes on her. She made sure to swing her hips a little as they rounded the house. And she knew without looking that Ryan was enjoying the show.

She swung her way into the back seat of the LeBaron and the boys climbed into the front.

"Wow," Theresa said, checking it out and fingering the upholstery. "This is one sexy ride."

"Oh, yeah," Arturo said, beaming proudly from the front.

"This car is hot, right?" Ryan asked.

"That's what I just said," Theresa said, confused.

"No, it's not," the guys said at once.

"Oh." It suddenly dawned on Theresa. "Arturo!"

"It's not anymore. Paint job, new plates, you dig?" he insisted. "And don't breathe a _word_ to Ma." He wagged a finger at the rearview mirror.

"I wouldn't," she said.

"Yeah, she's cool," Ryan added. "Hey, you got a cigarette? I left mine at home."

With a sigh, Theresa dug in her purse and produced a cigarette, leaning forward to hand it to him in the front seat. She pulled one out for herself as well.

"Light?" Ryan prodded, and she practically threw her Bic at him. "What?"

"Nothing," she said, blinking. "Oops."

Ryan passed the lighter back and leaned back in the seat, closing his eyes as he took a drag.

"Hey, kid, smoke out the window, would ya? Don't stink up my car." Arturo revved the car out from behind the house. "And I have been looking forward to this thing all week."

"Yeah, man, me, too," Ryan piped up. He exhaled smoke out the open window. "Summer, it's really here, right?"

"I'm dreading it," Theresa said. "I don't get why your brother had to invite those moron chicks."

"So we can have fun with them while _you_ behave yourself," Arturo snapped.

"Yeah, behave yourself, Theresa," Ryan added, a wry grin around his cigarette.

"I _will_ kick your ass, Atwood, don't think I won't," she threatened.

"I believe you." Yet his tone? Not so convincing.

"Hey. That's my cigarette you're smoking."

Cars were packed on the street around Trey's building. The pounding music led them to his apartment, and as she crawled out of the car, Theresa could hear the shattering of glass and the squeals, alternating between delight and horror.

"Behave yourself," Arturo admonished her again. In response, Theresa offered him both middle fingers and charged for the crowd, escaping before he could either yell at her or attempt to put more clothes on her.

"Theresa!" Eddie seemed to materialize from nowhere, dissolving into existence from a sea of strange faces. "You look..."

"...Nice?" she filled in when it seemed he wasn't getting the words. She laughed. "Yeah, I didn't think so, either. Hey, Ryan and Arturo are around, where do I get a beer in this place?"

"The kitchen-" was all Eddie could say before she took off. She knew where Trey's kitchen was, which was good, because she'd never be able to even guess with all these people blocking the way.

She really had more clothes on than a good proportion of the girls here. She had to find a way of getting herself to these parties without depending on Arturo for transportation. She could get a lot further, have a lot more fun if-

"Ohmi_god_!" She turned, trying to hide her pained expression, to see Becca in some sort of bikini-halter top hybrid, sandwiched between the thighs of one Trey Atwood, who was perched on top of the counter tilting a Budweiser back into his mouth. He promptly let out a belch loud enough to carry over the crowd.

Theresa scuttled for the obligatory hug, careful not to get _too_ close to any embarrassing parts of Ryan's brother's anatomy. Or too close to Becca, for that matter.

"Great party," she offered to Trey.

"What?" he yelled, cupping the hand clutching the Bud to his ear.

"Party!" she tried again, and offered a thumbs-up.

"Yeah!" Trey screamed with enthusiasm, pulling Becca in, still turned in Theresa's direction. He held her in with his beer-free arm, which she clutched protectively in turn. "Great!"

She took the opportunity to slip into the kitchen crowd, but there seemed to be very little chance of getting a beer through this mob. She stood on her tiptoes, raising her high heels off the floor, craning her neck to see if she could spot a possible destination.

"Looking for one of these?"

Theresa turned in the direction of the tap on her shoulder and saw a guy standing there smiling at her. She was pretty sure she didn't recognize him, but he was holding out a Coors Light, which was a good thing, and so she relaxed and took it, returning his smile.

"Aw, thanks," she said loudly above the din, "it was looking a little bit impossible there."

"Now we can get out of here," he said, "right?"

She paused and glanced around. She could see Trey whispering something in Becca's ear to crack her up, but Ryan, Eddie and Arturo were nowhere to be seen.

"Follow me," she said, taking a deep breath, and she led him through the mob, out the front door, and down to the sidewalk.

"Fresh air," the guy said, and she turned around to study him. Not bad, really, in the streetlights in front of the apartment building. Tall, dark hair, bit of a craggy face, good build, nice, thin-lipped smile. Solidly built, which was perfectly appealing. Small nose, light-colored eyes. Okay.

"I'm Mike," he said.

"Theresa."

"Hi, Theresa. So," he said, holding up his own Bud, "did I get you the right drink?"

"I love Coors Light," she said, popping off the cap and taking a swig. She swallowed.

He winced. "Not too much, huh?"

She shrugged. "Eh, beer is beer." She hesitated. "I'm actually... not much of a beer drinker."

"No? What's your drink of choice?"

"I'm kind of a wimp, really," she admitted, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Give me an alco-pop any day."

He laughed. Mike had a nice laugh. Nice smile. She relaxed a little more, shaking her shoulders out. He was staring at her cleavage, too. She was working the shirt. It was a good thing.

"The girly stuff, huh?"

"Well, in some respects, I can't really escape my gender," Theresa admitted, wondering even as she said it if she should be dumbing it down more. Shorter words. More giggles. Don't talk too much.

"Clearly," he said. She caught the sparkle in his eyes, and felt at once flattered and flustered.

"So, uh, you from Chino?" she asked, taking another sip of beer.

"Eh. Sort of. Los Serranos." He reached to wipe the beer from his mouth.

"Yeah?" Not too far. Theresa jutted her boobs out just a little and tilted her chin down. She hoped she wasn't wiping off too much of her lipstick on the foul beer. So not worth it.

"You are a very pretty girl," Mike said, moving closer. "Anybody ever tell you that?"

"Sometimes," she said slyly.

"You want to, uh, go for a walk?" Mike asked, indicating casually with his beer.

Theresa glanced around, her heart racing. She didn't see Arturo or Eddie or Trey, but she did see Ryan. In the yard. Holding a beer. Talking to Lily.

And then she saw Ryan laugh, his eyes lighting up with actual happiness.

"Sure," she said with a deep breath, turning away from Ryan, back to Mike, "let's go."


	9. The Field

Mike's arm settled around her shoulders as they set off across the parking lot. Theresa felt giddy, nervous and thrilled all at once. Two minutes into the party and already...

"How do you know Trey?" she asked.

"Work," he said, waving an ambiguous hand.

"Uh huh," she said, watching the hand.

"And you?"

She shrugged, leaning into Mike's sturdy frame. "He grew up next to me."

"Lucky him."

She beamed in spite of herself, and he pulled his arm tighter around her. This felt good. Public. Like a couple.

This was what she should have... what she deserved... Romance. Attention. Affection. Someone who wasn't so challenging, not so hard to read. Right now, it was easy to read Mike. He liked her. There was no question in her mind. She knew everything she needed to know. There was no reading between the lines, no insinuating, no guessing, no faltering.

Far away from the streetlights now, across the lawn, under the moonlight, he turned her around to kiss her and she collapsed against him.

This was exactly what she deserved.

She rolled her tongue in his mouth, pressing her lips against his as she did. Mike's kisses weren't like Ryan's. Mike's mouth moved hard, dry, fast. He sucked at her tongue, nipping, poking.

Theresa relented, submitting, kissing back, letting his tongue slide into every corner of her mouth. So fast. Ryan was nothing like this. This didn't feel quite as good, but that was okay, that didn't mean anything...

She let her hands slide down Mike's back, soft and slow. And yet he was moving so quickly, his hands already at her shirt as he pressed up against her-

She pulled back. "Wait," she said with a sigh, "I don't know if-"

He grabbed her tightly and shoved his tongue back into her mouth, hard, forceful, silencing her.

"Mmm!" She tried to smack his arms away, but he was much bigger, much stronger. She pulled her head back. "No, I only mean we should-"

He shook her, hard. "No, no, you can't... can't back down on me now!"

Theresa felt the panic setting in. She was losing control. A cold chill ran through her, along with the hot rush of fury. His hands were everywhere, moving around her, grabbing at her clothes.

"C'mon," he pleaded, and now her tank top was cast aside and his hands were at her jeans, still moving quickly, too quickly, too fast...

"No, not like – stop!" Theresa shrieked. She tried to smack him with her free arm, but he grabbed it.

"C'mon, pretty girl," he whispered. "Don't be like that." He fumbled at her pants and shoved his tongue back into her mouth. She tried to bite at it and he pulled back. "Bitch! Hey!"

He gave a great shove, and she fell backwards, but before she could scrabble away he was on top of her, pinning her in between his legs, and she felt her panic turn to pure terror.

"Get off me," Theresa grunted. She tried to free her hands, but they were pinned to her side as well. She fought to kick, but his weight was too strong a force against her. "No! Stop it!" There had to be a better way to get out of this. Play passive? Go along with him? Try and calm him down? The way he was struggling over her now, forcing himself into her mouth, there was no doubt that he was willing to hurt her. Plead with him? Humanize herself? She could taste the alcohol on his breath, and she knew exactly why he was out of control.

She had to do something, she had to act, she couldn't just sit back and let this happen... but -

"Hey! Knock it off!" The voice was all too familiar.

Theresa didn't know why hearing Ryan's voice should make this so much worse. It should have relieved her, made her feel safe, but it only made her feel lousy. Ryan was here. Ryan was watching. Ryan knew. Mike straightened up and she tried to follow, just to get up, just to get leverage.

Mike yelled something indecipherable at her, shoving her hard, and she fell back on the grass, landing hard on her arms as he took off running.

She heard two more sets of footsteps now, one coming towards her and one running away, in the darkness. Through the faint light of the moon she could barely make out the shape of the form coming towards her, the tall skinny one, just as familiar...

"You all right?" he asked, breathless, as he bent down over her with concern.

She covered her bra with her arms, looking away from him. "...Yeah. Super."

"Fuck," Eddie whispered to the side. "Hey. It's okay, you can quit shaking, we got you now." He put his arms over her shoulders, gently squeezing to try and reassure her.

She found herself cringing away from his touch. "My shirt's here... somewhere," she managed to say, and he released her to begin groping around in the grass. She relaxed immediately, shaking her shoulders out from where he had tried to massage her. "How did you...?"

"Ryan saw you," he said, and it was then that she heard the shouts, the grunts from across the field as Ryan finally tackled Mike.

"Ryan – no – Eddie?" she asked frantically. "He's gonna kill him, don't...!"

Eddie nodded at once and leapt to his feet, taking off in the direction of the scuffle. Alone in the grass, Theresa groped until her hands found the shirt, which she pulled on slowly. She reached down to fasten her jeans, but her hands were shaking too much. She couldn't maneuver the button, couldn't hold still.

She tried to take deep breaths. It was okay now. It was over...

She concentrated to fasten the pants, and started weakly towards the fight. Ryan was whaling on Mike now, which was almost impressive given the size difference between them, as Eddie tried ineffectively to stop him.

"Hey!" she called as she jogged across the field. "Ryan, cut it out!" Ryan sat on Mike's chest, pinning him to the ground.

"No – wait," Eddie was saying. "C'mon, man, you taught him a lesson already..."

With a grunt, Ryan launched another series of blows at Mike's face. He was like an animal, Theresa realized with shock. Unleashed, unhinged – there was a fury there she had seen before, and it terrified her.

She had to stop him. She had to save Ryan from himself. She did the only thing she could think of and jumped on his back, digging into his shoulders and pulling. Startled, Ryan launched backwards, to instinctively get her away from Mike, landing the two of them on the ground as Mike leapt to his feet and scurried away. The air in her chest was knocked out and Theresa gasped for her next breath, rolling on the grass as Ryan leapt off of her.

"Dammit, get him!" Ryan roared to Eddie.

"Eddie, don't," Theresa insisted, weakly as her breath returned. Eddie looked back and forth between them for a moment, but didn't move.

Ryan whirled on her, crouched in the grass like a tiger, the fury still just as present on his face, reflecting the distant lights. "What'd you do that for?"

"You were gonna kill him."

"Maybe! He deserved it!"

"Nothing happened, Ryan. I'm okay," she said quietly.

"Nothing happened?" he asked, his face turning red. "Nothing _happened_?"

"I'm fine, I mean, it's not like he... did... anything," she said, shivering as she said the word aloud.

"He was gonna," Eddie said quietly. She felt another involuntary shiver. "Hey, it's okay, baby, we're here." He knelt beside her.

"What were you _doing _going off with him?" Ryan demanded, still frozen in place, ice crystals hanging off his every word.

"I thought we were gonna... I don't know, make out." She realized how dumb and childish it sounded even as she said it.

"Yeah, you didn't _think_ nothing," Ryan snapped, leaping up to tower over her. "You don't even know the guy."

"His name is Mike, and he's from Los Serranos. And Trey does," she said defensively, staring back up at him. "They work together."

"Work together," Ryan muttered. "Work together, work, work, _dammit_, Theresa!" and she jumped even as Eddie did. "That's not a recommendation, all right? It's a fucking warning signal..." He turned and walked a couple of steps away, turning his face to the ground as if to hide something, still muttering to himself. "Worked with Trey..."

She wiped frantically at her eyes with the heel of her hand, suddenly ashamed. She wasn't gonna cry. Not here. Not in front of Eddie and Ryan. "It's not like... I was fine, it was okay, until..."

"Until you told him to stop?" Ryan asked, fuming. "Then it's not okay, dammit!"

Eddie's eyes flicked back and forth between them quickly. "Guys – hey, Ryan, man, calm down, she's not the one you should be mad at."

"Yes, she is!" Ryan shouted, his voice breaking. "She should know better! How long have you lived in Chino, Theresa? Your whole _life_? You know how this stuff works. What are you _doing_ going off with a guy like him? By yourself?"

"What are you really mad about?" she asked, suddenly curious. "The fact that I went off with a guy like him, or the fact that I went off with a guy?"

His look was ice cold. "Like him," he said in a low tone, and his voice left no question in her mind. She looked down, ashamed, hiding behind long, dark strands of hair.

"You know, it's not like he was wearing a sign that said, 'hi, I don't take no for an answer'!"

"Well, unless his sign said, 'I do take no for an answer,' you've _got_ to be more _careful_ than that!" Again she pushed frantically at her eyes with the heel of her hand, still trying to contain the sob that was lurking just behind her exterior.

"I'll talk to Trey," Eddie said, standing up, almost as if he was trying to draw Ryan's attention away from her. "Find out more about this Mike kid, but if we _ever_ see him back in Chino there's gonna be problems."

"No," Theresa pleaded quickly. "Don't start something. Anything... Just – nothing happened, I'm okay, let it go, all right? I don't want some big gang feud coming out of this, or-"

"He _attacked_ you, Theresa," Ryan said, staring at her with a solemn, expressionless face. "And anybody who tries to hurt you is gonna have to deal with me. And Eddie. And Trey and Arturo."

"No," she said again, struggling to her feet finally. Eddie stretched a hand out to assist her and she accepted. "No, please, don't tell Turo."

"Why wouldn't we?" Ryan demanded angrily.

"Cause as bad as you just were? He's only gonna be worse." She brushed the grass from her pants, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden.

"So? Mike deserves it!"

"I _don't_ want you to tell Arturo." She didn't want to see any of her guys in trouble over this. Not Ryan, not Arturo, not Eddie. Not because of her.

"Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you went off with that crazy guy. I'm telling him anyway." Ryan folded his arms.

"C'mon, cut it out," Theresa snapped. "I said no already."

She could see the fury building in Ryan again, the darkening of his face, tightening of his fists. Her heart pounded in her chest as she tensed, bracing.

"C'mon, Theresa," Eddie said, pulling her aside. "Let's just get you home."

She shook him off. "No. I want you and Ryan to promise me you won't tell Arturo."

"Fine, fine, just come with me." Eddie reached for her again.

"No," Ryan said, setting his jaw. "No, I can't promise that."

"Who the hell are you to think you're king of the world?" Theresa yelled at him, breaking away from Eddie. She knew she'd said too much, way too much, but she couldn't stop it now. It was on its way out, and it wasn't going to stop just because something in the back of her mind was hissing at her to shut up, shut the hell up, cut it out now before things got even worse. "You just think with your fists, you don't _listen_ to a goddamn thing! I tell you what, Ryan Atwood, you are _just_ like him!"

Ryan stared at her in horror, his arms hanging limp at his sides. "What the _hell_?"

"You heard me!"

His fists tightened again, clenching from tension, turning white at the knuckles. "Shut the _hell_ up! You don't know _what_ you're talking about!"

"You see?" she asked Eddie, with a choked laugh, her hand gesturing stiffly.

"We're going," Eddie said, his voice even.

"Damn straight," Theresa said, glaring back at Ryan.

"Hey, man, if you find Arturo, just – just tell him she wasn't feeling well," Eddie said quietly.

Ryan looked back and forth between them. Clearly he didn't want to give in to her, but when it was Eddie, too... he looked up to Eddie, didn't want to cross him, Theresa thought bitterly. She would never have that kind of influence on Ryan.

Ryan turned and stormed off across the field, vanishing into the darkness. "Don't you dare tell my brother!" Theresa yelled after him, knowing it was pointless.

"He's not," Eddie assured her. "Hey. Give him a little time."

His voice was so soft, so reassuring. So comforting. She didn't deserve it. She didn't deserve his pity, his affection. She felt a tear finally sliding out of her eye and hurriedly wiped it away. Couldn't be so vulnerable – not in front of Eddie...

"Let me take you home?"

She sniffed and nodded, grateful. Theresa followed Eddie through the field, away from Ryan, towards the safety of her home.


	10. The China

"He's an idiot. A great _fucking_ idiot." She folded her arms, now safely ensconced in Eddie's Oakland A's sweatshirt, and glared out the window of Eddie's car as they drove down her street. The houses looked lonely in the streetlights, dark windows and quiet yards. The party at Trey Atwood's place seemed worlds away. Maybe it was.

Eddie shook his head. "He's a smart kid, Theresa. You know that. Just rash sometimes is all."

"Don't take his side! Why are you taking his side?"

"I'm not! Look-" Eddie sighed. "He means well. And I just don't think he's the one you should be mad at, is all."

"Oh, so you think it was my fault, too?" She turned to face him, aghast. "Nice."

He shook his head frantically. "No! No – just, he was trying to help. In his own way. That's all."

"His way is _not_ what I had in mind." She huffed as she threw herself back into the seat for emphasis.

The car idled to a stop in front of her house, and Theresa reached for the door. She couldn't wait to collapse into bed, underneath her own comforter, in the semi-darkness of her own room.

"You sure you're okay?" Eddie asked with obvious concern.

"Yeah." She blinked. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Why wouldn't you?" he echoed, confused.

But she shook her head. "Naw. Fine. Really." Course she was fine. She was strong. She was a survivor. She wasn't scared, it took more than that to scare her...

"You want, I'll walk you in?" he offered.

She shook her head. "No, but... Eddie. Thanks for everything tonight. I mean it."

"Yeah, well." He offered her a small smile.

"No, I'm sorry I ruined your night. Really." She released the door and let her hands slide into her lap as she stared down at them.

"Ruined?" he asked. He stared at her in amazement, shaking his head. "No. You're a special girl, y'know? I'd do – hell, any _one_ of us would do anything for you. Anything. You know that."

"Yeah..." She trailed off.

"I don't want to see you get hurt," he said softly, avoiding her eyes. "By... anyone."

She cocked her head at him, but said nothing.

Anyone.

The word hung in the air.

Eddie cleared his throat. "Take it easy," he said as she climbed out of the car.

"You, too, sweetie." She made her way around the car to lean through his open window, where she laid a quick, soft kiss on his cheek. He smiled back at her ruefully before glancing down at his lap.

She walked up the walkway to her house, and could still hear the sound of Eddie's idling car behind her. He was waiting until she got in the door. He _was_ a sweetie. She smiled to herself as she walked towards the house. But only for a moment.

Theresa dug her keys out quietly. Eva would be sound asleep, and even though Theresa was in fact home on the early side, there was no need to press the issue. She keyed the lock open and turned to wave Eddie off.

The hall light was on – no surprise, Mama always left the light on when she and Arturo were out. The surprise was rounding the corner to see her mother wide awake, in the living room, reaching for her purse.

"Mama?"

She felt the hairs on the back of her spine prickling. Whatever this was, she didn't need it. Not now. Something was wrong, or Eva had heard, or...

"You're home!"

"It's 1:30, what are you doing up?"

Eva waved her hands as she spoke. She was in a hurry. "An emergency. Brandon Medena pulled a china shelf down."

Theresa clasped her hand to her mouth, horrified. "The china shelf? You're kidding. Oh, god. Is he okay?"

"_He's_ fine. A miracle. His mama thinks she might have broken her arm, she has to go to the hospital. I'm going over to keep an eye on the little ones, Dora is driving her in."

"Oh," Theresa said hesitantly. "Oh, I can do it, Ma, you have to work first thing in the morning."

"And you!" Eva put her hands on her hips and glared at Theresa.

"Not until the afternoon. And I know where all the stuff is, I know what to do. Just drop me off, I'll do it. It's okay, really," she pleaded.

"She's not paying," Eva warned. "This is a favor."

"It's fine," Theresa insisted. "Really. I'll do a favor." She took a deep shuddering breath and tried to smile. "They need help, it'll... I'm maybe kind of in the mood to help somebody out."

Eva shrugged and reached for her keys. She was never one to argue too hard. "Let's go, then."

* * *

Eva turned the car off in front of the Medena house and reached for the door. Theresa leaned over and touched her mother's arm.

"I'm okay to go in by myself, Ma, thanks for the ride." She was more than ready to be alone.

But Eva shook her head. "With Juana hurt? Oh, no."

They discovered Juana sitting in the living room, clearly in pain, as Dora tried to temporarily set her arm. Dora, some cousin of Juana's who lived nearby, was a registered nurse or something, Theresa was pretty sure. It paid to have good friends. Like any good woman in a crisis, Dora's face was set, expressionless as she tended to her friend. Juana, similarly, looked staunch and resolute.

See, Theresa told herself, feeling increasingly worthless, _this_ is how you behave in a crisis. Not with tears. Not with fights... crying...

"Theresa will stay with the little ones instead," Eva was saying, and Theresa found herself nodding obediently.

"The bus comes for Brandon at 7:15," Juana managed to say.

Theresa continued to nod, feeling drained, numb, weak... The words echoed loudly in her head as she tried to process them, tried to focus, tried to listen.

"Get him up at 6:30, he eats dry cereal, and Angel's sitter will be here at 7:30." Was she still talking? Her mouth was still moving...

Theresa bobbed her head again. "We'll be fine," she promised.

She stood at the door watching as Dora and Eva ushered Juana into the car. As the two cars drove off, she closed and latched the front door.

Alone.

She felt the tears rush in. For over an hour now she'd been fighting them, and now, alone, she could finally let go.

She slid down the wall of the Medena's living room, her chest shaking rhythmically, wiping frantically at the tears pouring forth.

Images flashed in her head. Mike. Ryan. Ryan on Mike. Mike on her. Forcing her down... She shook her head, trying to force the images away. _Why_ was she crying so hard?

All she'd done was make things worse. Trying to make Ryan jealous. What was the point? He didn't do jealous – he did angry, and hurtful, and vindictive, and even clueless. But not jealous. No, the only person she'd hurt was herself.

And now he was mad at her, angry with her, and she was furious with him, and she was shaking harder than before, and Theresa was crouched on the floor of the house AJ had abandoned, shivering, bawling like a baby.

She had a feeling that maybe it wasn't going to be a very good summer after all. 

* * *

_...On the beach, her back pressed up against the rough bark of a tree. She could almost taste the salt water. But the beach was littered with trees, blocking out the sun, sand blowing over their roots._

_She felt her loins tingling as he moved in close – and then he leapt, going over her head, far above..._

_"Ryan?"_

_Her voice echoed loudly in her head as he disappeared effortlessly into the thick cover of branches and leaves._

_She had to bring him back. He would fall and hurt himself if she didn't save him. He didn't know how to climb trees. He only knew sand, and water, and the safety below._

_She grappled for the tree trunk but it was rough and hard, and her palms hurt. How had he jumped so easily? He was scared of heights. It didn't make any sense. The sand shifted beneath her feet, upsetting her balance. If she didn't follow him she would sink beneath it, it was quicksand, it was pulling at her..._

_She bent down and leapt up, desperately attaching herself to the tree. She fought her way up, above the tree cover, and looked around at the bright, blinding sky._

_"Ryan...?"_

_Her voice was so thick and far away..._

_She saw him. Perched in a nest at the top of a tree, crouching, that look of fury on his face again. Looking like he was ready to kill, ready to strike._

_Before she could call out to him loud enough for him to hear, he rose up suddenly. His feet left the nest and she wanted to scream, but as the nest crashed to the ground, crumbling and breaking apart in its descent, Ryan flew up, up into the sky. High. Far away. And Ryan was scared of heights._

_She wanted to call to him. Come back... wait... I'm here, I'll catch you... but the words didn't come. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. Instead, Ryan grew smaller and smaller until he was a speck against the sun, too far for her to rescue. _

_Too far to rescue her.

* * *

_

_Knock... knock..._

Theresa rolled over in her sleep.

_Knock..._

Why was her bed so hard? Where was her headboard? Where...?

_Ding! Dong!_

She bolted upright. She'd fallen asleep on the Medenas' living room floor. She brushed the hair from her face and checked her watch. 4:38 a.m. Was Juana home already? Was the sitter here? No, too early... and Juana had a key. So...

She pushed to her feet and peeped out the keyhole. She stared in shock at the rumpled, light hair she saw there. What was...?

She pulled the door open a crack. "What are you _doing_ here?"

"Your mom told me you were here."

"You _woke_ up my _mom_?" She felt light-headed, the blood rushing from her sudden changes in consciousness and elevation.

"I had to talk to you!"

She sighed and shifted her weight, tilting her head to glare at him.

"Please... just let me in?"

"What makes you think I'd let you in right now?" She fought back a yawn.

"Five years of friendship? Come _on_, Theresa."

Theresa rolled her eyes and opened the door, her adrenaline pumping. Ryan slouched inside and she locked the door before turning to lean against it, her arms folded.

"This couldn't wait until tomorrow?"

He stared at her, his face still solemn, but somehow calmer. His eyes landed briefly on Eddie's Oakland A's sweatshirt, then flickered away. Those puppy dog eyes of his... "It couldn't." He licked his lips, glancing around. "So..."

"I'm sorry," they both said at once, in a rush.

"You first," she motioned.

"No, you."

"No way. I'm second." They faced off for a moment before the two of them cracked up, together. Theresa laughed and choked at the same time, feeling tears stinging her eyes once more.

"I _hate_ being mad at you," she blurted out, her voice cracking. "_Why_ can't I stay mad at you?"

"I'm sorry," he said, looking down. "You were right, I was – it was stupid. You were upset, I didn't have any right to pick a fight with you." He hesitated. "And I didn't tell Arturo, if you were... wondering, you know..."

She glanced down. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

"Ryan-" Her eyes were finally clearing up.

"No, really, I mean it, don't mention it."

"I'm sorry. I should know better, and I know you were only trying to help me. And I was upset, and you were there, and I guess it was just easier to be mad at you than..." She rattled off the words as if she was practicing a line. Then she hesitated. "If he hadn't attacked me, if we'd just made out, would... would you still have been as upset?" She was afraid to look at him directly.

"Naw," he said, looking down as well. "No, it's no business of mine. You're right, you can go with anyone you want, as long as they're okay guys, you know?"

"Not... Mike."

"Not Mike." His face offered a small smile, which she returned.

It wasn't the answer she'd wanted. That was okay, though. Really. It was.

"But are you okay?" he pressed.

"Course. Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

He squinted at her. "Why wouldn't you be?" he echoed, sounding just like Eddie for a moment. Sometimes they were so much alike it scared her.

But she brushed the thought away. "So what'd you follow me for, anyway? What if we _had_ just been making out? Were you gonna watch?"

"I was gonna make sure I didn't have to kick his ass," Ryan said seriously. "You can go out with whoever you want, but they damn well better treat you right."

"Ryan," she sighed, deciding not to press the stalker issue. "You know it – it scares me. When you go off like that."

"Like what?" He looked genuinely confused.

"Like in the field. Back there. On... on Mike." She licked her lips.

"He pissed me off." So matter-of-fact. So casual. Mike pissed him off, and that was that.

"I know."

"Somebody had to teach him a lesson."

"I know." Yet somehow, still, it didn't feel right. And Theresa didn't feel reassured in the least. In fact, she felt distinctly unsettled.

Ryan glanced around, striding further into the house. "Wow. I haven't been here since-"

"February," she said.

He pointed at her. "That night we-"

"-Got high?"

Ryan grinned. "In the backyard. Yeah."

In retrospect it was a fun memory. It hadn't been at the time. "Oh, yeah. When Juana came home early I thought I'd never be invited back."

She moved to the couch and sank into it, twisting her back to work out the creaks from her nap on the floor. After a moment, he joined her, perching stiffly on the corner of the couch, as if he was afraid to even lean back. 

Ryan pressed his lips together, staring around. "So. A.J.'s old house, huh?"

"How... is he? Are you?" she amended, anxious.

He shrugged. "Eh."

"'Eh'?" She waited for the clarification.

"This house, it's better than ours," Ryan remarked. "Looks nicer."

Theresa dropped her jaw. "Yeah, sure, _now_. Wait till the rugrats get up. Oh..." She trailed off, distracted. "The china shelf..." She leapt up from the couch and darted into the dining room, Ryan right behind her.

Sure enough, the remnants of the accident were still all over the floor. She clapped a hand to her forehead and shook her head at the disaster.

Pieces of the Medena family history had been smashed to the ground, chips and shards of their life together scattered here in the heart of their house. And only Theresa and Ryan were left to pick up the pieces, strangers in their home to clean up the mess. Somehow it made sense to her.

"What the hell happened in here?" Ryan asked in amazement.

"Yeah, Brandon pulled the shelf down and broke his mama's arm, that's where she had to go," she explained. "This is just great. Look at this. How does a three year old get ahold of a shelf that high?" She pointed to where the shelf had ripped out of the wall.

Ryan glanced around. "Chair?" She looked to where he was pointing, and sure enough, the out-of-place dining room chair looked like the culprit. "Yeah, okay then, so where do they keep the garbage bags?"

"Kitchen. C'mon."

Together, they retrieved the bags, a broom, a dustpan and a pair of heavy-duty rubber gloves that they divided, Ryan with the right glove and Theresa with the left. Ryan rolled his jacket up and deposited it on the kitchen counter.

"Better double bag it," Ryan suggested. "The pieces might puncture the plastic."

She nodded. Nothing ever broke at her home. Eva wouldn't have it. Even Arturo, who was otherwise a lumbering elephant, was graceful as a bird in their house because he feared the consequences if he wasn't.

"Thanks," she said. "You don't have to do this."

"Course I do. I owe it to you. After tonight."

"No, I owe _you_."

"No..."

She dropped another shard into her bag. _Clink._ "Call it even?"

He nodded. "Deal – ow!" He clapped a hand to his right arm.

Her head shot up. "You okay?"

"Just a little bleeding." He held it away.

"Let me see." She reached out.

"No."

"Ryan!" Again, she tried to grab for the injury.

"I'm fine!"

She sighed and clucked her tongue. "Ryan, don't be a baby. C'mon." Grudgingly, he held his arm out to her. A piece had sliced straight up his forearm, leaving a red trail of droplets in its wake.

"Ouch," she said in sympathy. "We need to get something on it, Bactin, or-"

But he was shaking his head. "I can't use their stuff, it's like stealing."

"Don't be ridiculous, you were helping to clean Juana's dining room. Besides, aren't you guys practically family now, anyway?" She meant the last part as a joke, but then she glanced at his expression and regretted it right away.

"Not really," he said, strained. "You know what? I shouldn't be here." He reached for the table and started to pull himself up.

"So you're just gonna leave me with all this? Come on." She gestured at the disarray.

He hesitated, looking torn.

"I know where she keeps the First Aid stuff. Come on." She pressed her hands on her knees to stand up, and led him to the bathroom where she took out the antibacterial gel and a band-aid that looked large enough to cover the scratch.

"Ow!" he snapped as she applied the gel.

"Oh, you know you've had worse. At least this time we're not resorting to vegetables."

He snorted, shaking his head.

She grinned as she applied the bandage. "Such a surly patient he is." She leaned back against the counter to study her work, pleased. "All this time spent with you and I'm learning to be a terrific nurse. This is good career training, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, and your beside manner needs work. But glad to know I'm good for something," Ryan deadpanned as he shook his arm out.

"Damn right, worthless bum," she muttered, teasing, and was shocked to see a brief expression of pain cross his face. "I'm kidding!"

"I know you are."

She stared at him suspiciously. "Just checking?"

"You know," he said, drawing back, looking unbearably awkward again, "I really should get going. I don't want to be here when Juana comes home."

Theresa put the last of the medical supplies away and closed the cabinet door. "Is this about A.J.?"

He studied the doorframe closely, avoiding her eyes. "Well, I mean, Juana... and there's me, and... I mean, think about it."

"It's not your fault, though."

He shrugged, looking particularly pathetic. "Yeah, I'm still Dawn Atwood's kid, you know?" He snorted a little.

"I know." She licked her lips. "Just help me finish first. Please?"

He took a deep breath. "If we hurry."

Back in the dining room, she found herself matching pieces of china together, remembering what went with what only hours before. It pained Theresa to throw away so much of Juana's good china, but it really wasn't salvageable. All gone to waste. Cause of a stupid kid...

"Look at this." Ryan was studying the holes in the wall where the shelf had been attached. "It's shitty work. No wonder this thing fell." He shook his head at the mess, disgusted. "Bet you anything A.J. put that thing up."

Theresa shook her head back at him. "I know better than to bet with you."

"This wall is concrete, and bad concrete. You can't just stick a screw in it. What was he thinking? In a house with kids, too." Ryan rubbed at the hole angrily, chips and dust scattering to the floor from his fingertips. "You know something? This was gonna happen whether or not the kid touched the thing. Bet he didn't even have to pull hard. It's just stupid. And putting breakables on a shelf like this?" He paused for breath. He was ranting now. "He just wasn't thinking. Maybe he can't think, maybe he's just that dumb. And look! The walls are crumbling-" He broke off with a sharp laugh. "This whole place is _worthless_!"

"And now it's all Juana's," Theresa added. "You know a lot about this stuff. We should take you to see some of these houses with us. Mom's all concerned about location, and layout. She doesn't know how to look at whether a house is built _well_."

Ryan was still facing the wall, his voice strangely quiet. "You really gonna move?"

"Maybe. I don't know." Theresa took a deep breath. "Mom didn't like the last place, either."

"So you're not." He looked hopeful.

"Well. Not soon."

"Good," he said firmly.

She shook her head and gestured at the rest of the mess. "Hey, Atwood? Are you helping here, or not?"

"Oh! Right." Ryan scrambled to her side. He began gathering the last of the pieces. "Sure I'd be willing to help your mom. Just let me know when is all."

"Okay." Theresa nodded. "I'll tell her."

"Good."

"Great." They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence for a moment.

He licked his lips as he picked at the mess. "You can date whoever you want, you know."

She blinked. She wasn't sure she'd heard right. In fact, she was quite sure she hadn't. She was tired, it was the middle of the night. "Wait – _what_?"

"You heard me."

"I know, but non sequitur much?" From house-hunting to boy-hunting... maybe there was a logical connection in Ryan's mind, but Theresa was at a loss.

The pained expression was back. "I just want you to know is all."

"Oh..."

He shrugged, too quickly, as he tied off the last bag. He started to hoist it, but it slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor with a loud crash.

Theresa's hands flew to her mouth in horror as she stared at him, wide-eyed. They stared at each other in a frozen moment until the telltale screeching started up.

"Ohhh, Angelita," Theresa groaned, pulling at her hair.

Ryan tensed, his face white as a sheet. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"

She put a finger to his lips to silence him. "Hey. You finish up here. I'll get the little monster."

She made her way to the bedroom, where Angel was screaming bloody murder. Brandon was stirring in his mattress on the floor in a set of threadbare firetruck pajamas, but he seemed to be falling asleep again, thank god.

Theresa bounced Angel on her hip as she returned to the dining room where Ryan was carefully hoisting the last bag. "Hey, can I put this on the sidewalk out front?" he asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I think their trash day is tomorrow," Theresa said. She turned back to the baby. "Angel, baby, honey, shut up, please?" Unfortunately, Angel's language skills hadn't quite gotten there yet, and she let out another scream, ignoring the words Theresa was chattering to her.

She made her way to the sofa with the baby clinging to her sweatshirt as Ryan set to lugging the bag outside. Was this night ever going to end? Stolen cars, lecherous Los Serranos residents, fights and accidents and now a screaming tot. This was ranking somewhere on Theresa's Worst Night Ever list; she just wasn't quite sure yet how high it was going to end up. There were still a few hours left to go.

Angel quieted as they sank onto the sofa, much to Theresa's relief. "That's a girl," she cooed. "Mamacita Angelita, quiet girl." She lay back on the couch, cuddling Angel Medena to her chest. She fully understood matricide. She did. Why did people even bother to have the little trolls?

She closed her eyes. Such a long day. She took a deep breath. Angel continued to whimper and whine her unhappiness in a quieter voice. Theresa felt the urge to whimper with her. She wished she could still cry and scream and kick the way Angel was allowed to. Maybe _then_ she would feel better and this awful, sick feeling would finally go away.

Theresa opened her eyes to find Ryan staring at her, peeking out from behind the door. "Take a picture, it'll last longer," she grumbled, and at the sound Angel opened her mouth and let out another piercing shriek. Theresa rolled her eyes back. "Oh, brother. Hey Ryan, wanna fix me a bottle?"

His eyes went wide. "Uh-" he stammered.

"Fine. Fine! Just – here. Take the kid, then." She stood and offered him the child.

He looked uncomfortable but accepted the high-volume, squirming bundle into his outstretched arms. "What do I do? Do I have to hold her head, or...?"

"No." Theresa shook her head, enjoying his discomfort. "She's old enough. It stays up on its own now. Just – try and calm her down."

"How-?" She'd rarely seen him look so helpless, so lost.

She shook her head. "Don't shake her too hard. Gentle."

He looked pale and tired, but nodded obediently. Theresa whisked into the kitchen and checked to see if Juana had left any prepared bottles in the fridge. She hadn't, but Theresa knew where the formula was, and once she'd prepared and heated the bottle, she carried it to the living room, which was now... oddly quiet.

She stopped dead in her tracks at the sight in front of her. Ryan was sprawled out on the couch, baby Angel snoozing soundly on his chest, secured in place casually by one of Ryan's arms. The other arm was propped on the armrest, where he was resting his chin on his fist. He glanced up at her and she could only shake her head at him, trying to fight back the smile that was forming in the corners of her cheeks.

"You know what this means, don't you?"

He shook his head, solemn, as she gently set the bottle on the coffee table beside him. "You can't move now." She felt the corners of her mouth finally turn upwards as she saw his reaction hit.

"Great," he muttered as she sank onto the couch beside him.

"You little _sneak_. You never told me you were good with kids."

"I'm not, I suck."

She laughed gently, nodding at the silent form on his chest. "Angelita would beg to differ."

"It's not my fault she happened to fall asleep on top of me!" He looked truly lost, but somehow sweet all at the same time. It was hard to believe this boy was the same ferocious animal from only hours before, who had attacked his enemy so savagely, and now looked absolutely forlorn to be holding a sleeping child. She bit her lip as she stared at him, trying to reconcile the images in her mind as he studied the sleeping form on his chest.

They were startled by the sound of a key in the door.

"Oh, sh-" Ryan started, then glanced down at Angelita. "...oot," he amended helpfully.

Theresa didn't know what to do but sit there as the door opened, admitting Dora and Juana, who stopped in their tracks to stare. They were caught. There was no way around it.

"Hi," Ryan said curtly.

"Ryan came over to help me clean up," Theresa blurted out. "He got Angel to sleep. Um, how are you?"

"Fine," Juana said as she pulled the door shut behind them. "One fracture. Not so bad."

Angel stirred at the sound of her mother's familiar voice, much to Ryan's evident relief. As soon as she blinked her eyes open he sprang up, passing her to Juana's good arm.

"We cleaned up the mess," Theresa said again. "Ryan helped." She glanced at him, but he said nothing, glancing around at the walls, avoiding everyone's eyes.

"Theresa," Juana sighed, "It's fine."

"Okay," Theresa said, unconvinced.

"I'll drive them home for you," Dora offered, fishing for her keys.

"That'll be great," Juana agreed. "Do you mind – and Theresa – if I speak to Ryan? Just for a moment."

Dora bowed her head and moved outside the doorway, where the sun was just starting to poke up once more. Theresa hesitated, glancing at Ryan.

He shook his head subtly to indicate that he was fine and she should go. She raised her eyebrows and he raised his right back, mimicking her. After a moment, she trudged outside after Dora, defeated.

"So, she'll be fine, right?" Theresa asked, leaning against the gate, fingering her purse.

"She'll need some help for a little while," Dora countered. "And the bill."

Theresa felt cold even though the night was warm. "She doesn't have insurance?"

"No. And with no man to help..." Dora shook her head.

Theresa glanced back at the house, worried. "Is she... mad? That Ryan Atwood came over?"

Dora made a clicking sound. "Take a lesson from Juana, Theresa. Men? Not worth it."

She glared at the older woman. "He really was here to help me."

"Mmm hmmm."

"He was! Ryan's not like that!"

Dora regarded her with a long stare. "All men are like that. And then all men leave."

Theresa snorted. "I don't think that man's going anywhere." She hesitated. "Do you think – is she gonna-" She glanced at the house yet again. "You know, it's not Ryan's fault her husband hooked up with his mom. He can't help it."

But Dora's attention had wandered, and now she was studying her nails, her hands. She didn't have a wedding ring, either, Theresa noticed. Those were pretty hard to come by around here.

Ryan and Juana emerged from the house, locked in what seemed to Theresa like a meaningful gaze. Ryan waved to her and turned to hop down the stairs and join them by the waiting car.

He rode in the front seat to her frustration, and she had to wait through the silent car ride, until they were finally outside their respective houses with Dora driving away into the rising sun. She turned to him as soon as they were alone.

"What'd she say?"

But he only shrugged. "It's fine. We're fine." He turned and started for his house.

"What's that mean?" she demanded.

Again he shrugged. "I mean, she and my mom aren't-" he glanced at his house, dark in the early morning twilight.

"Yeah?" she prodded.

His shoulders rose and fell once more. "It's my problem now." He reached for the fence to unlock his gate.

"Ryan-" She wanted to kiss him goodbye, but something inside her froze.

"What?"

She shook her head. "Get some rest?"

He looked relieved. Maybe he hadn't wanted a goodbye kiss, either. "You, too."

She watched as he pulled the gate shut behind him and trudged up to his house, his feet dragging, his shoulders slumping. He turned at the door, saw her still standing, and waved his arms, shooing her off. Reluctantly, Theresa turned away before Ryan could open the door, and started off for her own house.


	11. The Meeting

_Note: Song by Macy Gray_

Theresa bent down over her foot, carefully aiming the brush at her big toenail, focusing intently on the red paint she was applying.

Her voice wove along to the music in the room almost out of habit. She could do a decent Macy. It wasn't Zaneeta Shinn; but then, when did she ever want to sound like Zaneeta Shinn? "And it's clear," she sang aloud, "Obviously, this is not the place I'm supposed to be... Dammit!" She grabbed for the Q-tip soaked with toenail polish removed and quickly attacked the drip to the side. She hated doing her toenails. If she ever had money like Lily's, she would pay to have them done.

"Before I do, just one more look at you..."

She brushed the last layer over the last of her big toenail, checked to make sure it was even, and screwed the top back onto the bottle, satisfied. It would do. Sandal season now, she had to look good. Her toenail polish was getting a little skanked now, it was still left over from last summer, but new polish wasn't really at the top of her limited shopping budget. She desperately wanted to buy a copy of the new Harry Potter book, everybody else she saw seemed to be halfway through it, but she didn't know anybody in her life who had actually bought a copy themselves. And the waiting list at the library was six months long, and Theresa was not a patient person.

She dumped the used Q-tips in the trash and replaced the red polish on top of her dresser. She was kind of hungry. Maybe a banana... She wandered out into the hall, where she heard voices and froze.

"I will _watch_ my daughter, and my son. But if you ask me, I still think perhaps you should be worried about your own sons."

The sharp, braying laugh in response made Theresa's skin tingle . She didn't understand how she could like Ryan so much and yet hate his mother so much. It didn't make sense to her.

"_My_ sons? Let me tell you something about _my_ sons. Do you know where their father is?"

Eva's voice was unnaturally even. "Of course I do."

"Do you know how these things work? Maybe you don't. I do. I am doing everything I can to keep those boys in line, but with one of 'em ditching me first chance he gets, and the other taggin' after him, and your kids... even having a man around don't help..."

"My kids are _not_ the problem." Theresa's skin was crawling even more now. How could she...? How dare she...? As if she was the one leading Ryan astray. She wished she was leading Ryan anywhere, but she was definitely not leading him astray.

"Oh, sure they're not. Don't you even want to know where your son is all night?"

"Don't you?"

There was a long silence. Theresa glanced down at her drying toenails and flexed her feet. She rubbed a toe along the worn hardwood floor.

"Listen to me. The kids? They are all right. We have smart ones, you and I."

Another long silence. "That," Mrs. Atwood said, sounding tired, "is exactly what I'm afraid of."

"Didn't you make mistakes when you were young? I know I did. It's where kids come from, and then it's what kids do."

Theresa heard the voice approaching the door, and she backed up, but not in time to get away from her mother, who emerged and found her. For a moment, Eva looked worried, but then she smiled a tight, forced smile.

"Oh, Therese! There you are. Look who stopped by."

Theresa forced a smile. It didn't feel right. "Hi. Mrs. Atwood."

Dawn Atwood turned in her chair, beaming that patronizing smile she used with Theresa sometimes. "Hi, honey! Look, your mom made these yummy cookies! You want one?" Mrs. Atwood didn't understand kids at all. It was mind-boggling that she had two of them.

Theresa bit back the urge to point out that she could get the cookies herself if she wanted them. "Oh. I'm not really-"

"Just one cup of tea," Eva said, and even though she was smiling, Theresa heard the veiled threat far, far beneath the surface of the words. She would be joining them.

Her fake smile still pasted on, Theresa reluctantly slipped into the living room and helped herself to a handful of cookies before settling into the corner of the couch away from Eva and Dawn.

"I was just telling your mom I'm working at Pepe's now," Dawn said, beaming. "Don't you go there sometimes?"

"Sometimes," Theresa said, trying to smile as she looked away. Maybe she wouldn't be going there anymore. And if Ryan's mom was working there now, no way would Ryan ever go there. Which kind of took away all of the point of going. And besides, that wasn't what they were talking about at all anyway.

"And your mom was telling me about your house-hunting," Dawn said.

"Oh. Really?" Theresa bit into a cookie, catching the crumbs with her hand.

"A.J. and I are talking about moving, too. Give Ryan some more space." Dawn beamed, as though she thought he was solving all her problems.

"Hmmm," Eva said through her nose.

Dawn's face tightened. "Eva. I know you're Juana's friend."

Eva shook her head abruptly. "Oh, no, that's not – it's not my business, I stay out of it."

Theresa hid behind a cookie, now frustrated with her mother again. Of course not. It was never Eva's business.

Dawn looked relieved. "You know, she treated him horribly. So selfish-"

"Dawn," Eva said patiently. "I said. Not my business."

Theresa poked at her teeth with her tongue. A bit of raisin flesh was stuck in her molars.

"Having a man around – it's different when you have boys, you know," Dawn Atwood said, her voice taking on that high, nasally range that she always used when she was pleading with Ryan for something. "I'm just afraid Ryan only has Trey for a role model."

Theresa's head shot up. "And Eddie and Turo," Theresa piped up, if only to remind them that she was still here.

Eva shook her head. "Eddie... I don't know."

"What's wrong with Eddie?" Theresa asked, feeling suddenly defensive. "He's a good guy."

"Unlike Trey," Dawn sighed. "I don't know what I did wrong with that boy. Ryan at least is trying." She sipped her tea and made a face. A little rude, Theresa thought crossly. She wouldn't be making a face if it was spiked with rum. "But even him, with the fights. The other night. Ryan comes in at five-thirty, all scratched up." Theresa looked at her lap, feeling suddenly conspicuous and out of place. "I just don't know anymore."

Theresa caught her mother watching her sideways. She got it. This conversation was done, as far as she was concerned. Dawn, however, was oblivious. So she would have to jump on her chance to escape now, while she still could.

"I – I have to get ready for my shift tonight," Theresa stammered, hopping up and shoving her hands in her back pockets. She plastered another attempt at a smile on her face. "Bye, Mrs. Atwood."

She couldn't shake the feeling that something was not right. The thoughts swirled in her head as she biked her way to Pizza King, past overflowing dumpsters and abandoned storefronts and barbed-wire fences. It was such a strange world sometimes, mothers and children and lovers. Eva only ever talked about two of her lovers, the only two who had left evidence. The rest were lost to time. The two with evidence, surely there was more evidence, their names were somewhere, written on a birth certificate or letter. There had never been a marriage license, Theresa was fairly sure. Some day, she would have to ask. She wasn't even sure about that. All she knew was that Arturo's father had been deported, and her own father was dead. Or as good as. She wasn't exactly clear which one. Ryan and Trey's father had been doing time since before they ever moved to Chino, and Ryan tended to avoid the subject altogether. But Eva and Dawn were different. So different. Where Eva occasionally bemoaned the lack of a man in her household, Dawn seemed paralyzed in that situation. As if she was afraid to be with just her two boys – or one, as things now were.

"Your change is three twenty-one, and it'll be out in a minute." Theresa dropped the money into the impatient palm and slammed her cash drawer closed. People didn't understand when they were being rude to her that there was a person on the other side of the register. Since when had basic human decency ceased to exist?

"Busy?"

The voice disarmed her at once and she smiled with relief into Eddie's grinning face.

"Depends. You ordering?"

"Only if you have turkey subs." He looked hopeful.

She leaned forward, settling her weight on the counter. "Do we ever."

"Really good ones?"

"The best."

"No mayo?"

"Done. Manny!" Theresa scrawled on her order pad before tossing it up on the line. "Number forty-eight's on my tab, and no mayo."

"Sure, you just tag it on," Manny called from the back.

Eddie leaned forward, resting his elbows on the counter. "Now are you busy?"

"No." She blinked at him, the wheels turning. For some reason she felt unusually glad to see him. "Not now. Hey, Lily?"

Lily, slumped against her register, straightened up.

"I'm taking fifteen. Can you deal?"

Lily's eyes went wide. "Uh-"

"Yes, you can," Theresa said automatically. She whipped around the counter, pointing at the order window. "If that turkey sub comes up, bring it out for us, 'kay?"

She led Eddie to the outdoor seating area, where they settled at one of the white plastic umbrella-covered tables across from each other. He took a deep breath as he pulled his shoulders in, huddled beneath the umbrella, practically hiding from the sun.

"So I wanted to see how everything was," Eddie said, not looking at her. "Cause the other night was, you know-"

"Intense?" She chuckled in spite of herself. "Oh yeah." She looked up at him, sobering. "I'll be okay, Eddie. I'm a big girl."

"You are," he agreed. "Jesus. Seems like yesterday you was dressing Turo's Power Rangers in Barbie dresses, pissin' him off."

"Eddie, that _was_ yesterday," she deadpanned.

He finally looked up at her and snorted. "...Right."

She sat up, something striking her all of a sudden. "Oh, if I'd known you were coming, I would have brought your sweatshirt. I washed it."

He shook his head. "Don't bother. It's fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Keep it. I don't care."

"Cause I'll give it back to you."

"Whatever."

"Listen," she said, her expression sobering. "Eddie. I know I'm lucky to have friends like you and Ryan."

At Ryan's name, his head shot up. "Have you talked to him?"

"Who, Ryan?" She reached for a napkin. Her hands needed to fiddle. She couldn't sit still for some reason. "Yeah. We're good."

"Are you?" He looked skeptical. "You sure?"

She began to crumple the napkin methodically, focusing all of her attention on it. "You know how he is. He goes off, but give him an hour to cool down and he's apologizing like hell."

Eddie tapped his seat with his fingers, drumming, restless. "So he apologized?"

"Yeah. We're cool." She rolled the corner of her napkin back and forth.

"And you accepted?"

"Eddie." She wrinkled her nose at him. "I said."

"So you," and he looked nervous and pitiful and terrified all at once. "And Ryan, it's like nobody really knows what's... well..."

"Oh, no," she said in a hurry. "No, it's not _that_, it's never been _that_. Not like that. We're just friends. C'mon."

"So you could have gone out with, uh-" He stopped, looking rather bashful.

She bobbed her head, urging him on. "It's okay. You can say his name – Mike."

"-Jackass, yeah," he finished, and she had to smile at the table. "Him."

"Oh, yeah. Ryan hangs out with girls a lot." She stopped, considering this. "I think."

"What, he doesn't tell you?"

"We don't really talk about it, no." She reached up to finger the ends of her hair. She had some split ends starting. Maybe she needed to see if her mother could cut it for her.

"So..." Eddie took a deep breath. "You don't tell him when guys ask you out?"

"God, no," she said right away.

"I mean-" He took a deep breath, leaning his torso back as he held onto the picnic table, stretching. He straightened up. "If I? Asked you out?"

Her fingers stopped in mid-roll. "What?" she asked sharply, not sure what she was hearing.

"I mean, hypothetically," he said in a rush.

"Eddie-" She looked at him, studying his face, which seemed to be avoiding eye contact still.

"You wouldn't say anything? Tell Ryan, I mean?"

"You mean like go out with you? And not tell him?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Eddie searched for the word. "...Yeah."

She shook her head, still amazed. "That's different, Eddie. That's so different – you're not some guy. You're – I mean, you're _Eddie_."

"I'm not askin' you out, though. I'm just askin', what if?"

She fixed him with a stare. "Then what if we told Ryan?"

"It'd piss him off," Eddie said matter-of-factly, without even thinking. Maybe because he'd already spent a lot of time thinking about it. In fact, Theresa had the distinct feeling that he had.

"It's not like he owns me, you know," she pointed out, feeling defensive.

"It'd still piss him off."

She shrugged and reached for her napkin again. "Maybe."

"Okay." He shifted in his seat. "How about this? Forget Ryan Atwood for a second. Just you. If I asked you out, would you... say yes?"

She shredded methodically at the napkin, quiet for a moment. "Eddie-"

"Forget Ryan, Theresa."

She looked up at him. "I can't." She licked her lips. "I can't forget Ryan. And you're right. He'd flip his lid. And I can't lie to him. So no, Eddie. No."

She held her breath, not wanting to see her hear his reaction. But he covered his disappointment well, pressing onward. "And in a world where there was no Ryan Atwood?"

"C'mon, cut it out. Look. I care about you. You know I do. But things are complicated enough."

"They don't have to be," he muttered.

"Eddie-"

It was too late. He pushed back from the table, standing up. "I'll see you later."

This was wrong. She leaned forward, reaching for Eddie's arm. "Wait. No. Sit down, please-"

Lily burst through the door, carrying a plate in her hands. "Turkey sub?"

Eddie reached for the sandwich and peered at it. "Mayo?" He peeled the top layer off, exposing the white cream on top of the sandwich. He glared at Lily. "There's mayo on here!" he exploded.

Theresa rolled her eyes as she rose to her feet.

"Here!" Eddie shoved the sandwich at her. "It's yours anyway."

Theresa caught the plate. She felt Lily approaching her side as Eddie stormed through the parking lot to his truck.

"He okay?" Lily asked with only mild interest.

Theresa glanced down at her sub. "He hates mayo."

"Apparently," Lily nodded in agreement.

"I'm not hungry," Theresa said. "You want?" She held the plate out.

But Lily was shaking her head, wide-eyed. "I can't."

"Right." Heaven forbid she should put on an ounce of fat by actually eating something. "Manny'll eat it. C'mon."

Theresa held the door open and let Lily slip past her first. It was time for them to get back to work now.


	12. The Judgment

"I'm hungry. What's for dinner?"

Theresa glanced up over Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at Arturo towering impatiently over her. "Oh. Excuse me. Do I look like your cook?"

"Yes," Arturo said, not missing a beat. "Don't you?"

She turned back to the book. "I don't know. When does Mama get home?"

"Soon. Are you reading that Harry Potter crap _again?_" He squinted at the volume in her hands.

"I have enough money to get Book Five next week, I'm preparing. And I'll make you your damn dinner already if you stop making fun of Harry. What do you want?"

"Oh, deal. I dunno. Something..." He squinted and rubbed his stomach. "...Hearty."

Theresa thought for a moment. "Burgers?" She was pretty sure Eva had bought ground beef. And burgers were not only easy, but an easy way to make Arturo happy without too much effort. Which was a win-win situation for everyone.

He grinned. "Harry Fucking Potter is the best book ever."

Theresa tucked her bookmark in and rolled off the couch. "Don't you forget it."

She set to work searching for supplies, as Arturo collapsed at the kitchen counter. "Man, I'm beat."

She stood to glare at him from over the fridge door. "I worked an eight-hour shift today, too, you know."

"I know. Yeah. Eddie stopped by the garage today. Said he saw you."

"Did he." She bent back down so she didn't have to see Arturo.

He waited a moment. "'S everything okay?"

She shoved her yogurt aside. "Sure. Why?"

"I dunno. He seemed pissy."

"Maybe he had a bad day?" She pulled out the ground beef and cheese before closing the door.

"Did you… say something to him?"

She busied herself at the counter, collecting her spices. "Dunno."

"Therese?"

"Turo?"

"C'mon."

She sighed and tucked her hair back impatiently. "He was trying to ask me out. Badly." At Arturo's shocked expression, she snapped, "You can _not_ repeat that, all right? To anybody."

"Wait - hold - he asked you _out_?"

"No!" She waited a beat. "He _tried_."

Arturo pushed back in his chair from the table, shaking his head. "I _don't_ believe it. Eddie grew a pair?"

Theresa dropped the cheese on the counter with a loud slap. "What does that mean?"

He was still shaking his head. "C'mon, you know he wants you."

She stared back, shaking her head only once. "No, he doesn't."

"So what, he asked you out for the hell of it?"

"I guess. I dunno." She hadn't really thought about it all that much.

Arturo stared at her, bewildered and amused all at once. "So you two, you're gonna go out then?"

"Of course not."

He whistled. "No wonder he got pissy."

"What was I supposed to do?" she burst out. "He wants me to lie to Ryan about it."

He just stared at her. "Well, no shit, course he does."

She turned back to him in surprise. "Ryan Atwood doesn't own me. I'm a free agent," she said clearly.

Arturo snorted at that.

"What?"

Arturo was saved from having to defend himself by the sound of keys at the door and Eva's timely entrance.

"Oh, good, you got dinner?" Eva asked absently as she wandered in. She looked tired.

"Mama, Eddie asked Therese out," Arturo said right away.

"_Tur_o!" Theresa summoned the angriest glare she could. It still didn't feel convincing senough.

Eva seemed to freeze for a moment. "...Ah."

"I'm not going out with him, so it's a moot point," Theresa insisted.

Eva disappeared into her bedroom. "What about Ryan?" she called over her shoulder.

"What _about_ Ryan?" Theresa countered, and sighed. "You know what? I don't want to talk about this right now."

Eva emerged, having removed her shoes. "You should be patient with Ryan. He means well. He has a good heart."

"I think Mama wants him," Arturo said, his eyes gleaming with mischief. Theresa rolled her eyes. Arturo looked over at Eva for confirmation and suddenly looked concerned. "Ai. Mama, _sientate_."

"English, Arturo!" Eva snapped. "We speak English in this house! Don't you forget it."

Arturo grumbled something unintelligible either in English or in Spanish.

"You two," Eva sighed, searching for the words. "It's not easy, Theresa, but it never is." She sank down to the sofa and closed her eyes as if in pain.

"What's wrong with Eddie?" Arturo asked, in both directions. He took a step in his mother's direction.

"I don't want to go out with him, that's what," Theresa grumbled.

"I don't trust him," Eva said slowly. "He's too old for her. He has no job."

"He's job-hunting," Arturo pointed out.

"Ryan has a hard time. But he tries," Eva replied as Arturo moved to sit beside her on the couch. She put her feet up and he reached for them, beginning to gently rub them as she visibly relaxed. She spent all day on her feet at work, and she was starting to get too old for it.

Theresa felt annoyed now. "Eddie tries, too."

"You and Ryan, you're just such good _friends_..."

"Yeah," Theresa said with a nod. "That's just it, Mom. Friends."

"I don't get it," Arturo said, looking back and forth as he temporarily stopped rubbing his mother's feet, a questioning finger in the air. "Are you agreeing or disagreeing with Mama?"

"I'm agreeing with me," Theresa said as she cranked up the stove. "Are we done talking about this?"

Eva put her hands up. "You have to do what you think is right, Theresa."

Theresa glared at the stove. "What I think is right is to stop talking about this now."

"Why couldn't I have been born with an ugly sister?" Arturo asked a little too loudly. Theresa started to turn her glare on him before she realized that it was a compliment and she shook her head.

"It definitely would have made things a lot easier," she said, rueful.

"Life's not easy," Eva snapped, her voice sharp.

Theresa wanted to roll her eyes again as she started to cook the burgers, but as always, she knew her mother was right. Eva was always right. And the only thing Theresa was sure about now was that Eddie had just made her life much, much more complicated.

* * *

It was too hot in the restaurant. Even the air conditioner in the window couldn't overpower the heat of the ovens from the back. She brushed her Pizza King shirt over her forehead. There were hours yet to go today, and she wasn't sure she would make it.

Theresa searched the window. "Manny, where's the meatball sub on the Allen ticket?"

"Should be there, Mami."

"No, it's not," she called over into the kitchen. "I got two turkey subs, one with extra cheese. I got one individual garlic pizza, one individual sausage, and three pepperoni, all with the special. I got two veggie subs, but I got no meatball."

Theresa glanced again at the ticket. "Lily," she called over her shoulder, something suddenly striking her. "Lily, did you send the meatball sub order back?"

"Yeah...?" Lily asked hesitantly, winding her way over, abandoning her line for a moment.

"It's not here," Theresa said. "It's on the ticket, but..." She glanced at the second ticket, attached to the large lunch order. "It didn't go back. Manny! I need one meatball, fast. It was due five minutes ago. They'll be here any minute."

"I'm sorry," Lily stammered.

"Yeah, fine, just go back, you got people waiting," Theresa snapped. She finished stacking the order together and studied the rest of the orders. Everything was under control. She had to open up a new register before people started to get snippy. She moved to make sure the second register was working.

"Picking up for Allen and Sons?" The familiar voice at Lily's register made Theresa's head shoot up. Lily started to turn back to the window for the order as Theresa leaned over.

"Lily, you got to wait on that meatball sub," Theresa ordered, tapping the corner of Lily's register. "Remember? That's the ticket it was on." It had been about twenty seconds and already she had forgotten. Just great.

"Right," Lily said, ducking her head as she turned back to Ryan.

"Hi," Theresa said curtly to Ryan. "Your order's running late. Everything but the meatball sub is ready."

He looked amused. "Okay. Should I just wait, or...?"

"That's fine," she said, not looking at him. "Next?"

Ryan moved to the side and leaned one elbow on the counter, watching with a bored look as Theresa and Lily took the next two customers. It was all Theresa could do to focus on the customer in front of her, and not the one off to the side. Leaning. Oh, he was leaning. That was never a good thing. Not when she was trying to ignore him.

"One meatball!" Manny called from behind them, and Lily turned for the sandwich as Theresa cleared the last of her customers.

"Make sure you get the Thursday special on those," Theresa ordered, pointing to the ticket. "The individual pizzas."

Lily nodded, her eyes fixed wide on the register, as she scanned the ticket and started to enter the total. Theresa kept her eyes fixed on Lily's register as well, as Ryan scooted back over, pulling out a fistful of petty cash from Allen and Sons to cover the order for the whole site.

"No!" Theresa snapped impatiently. She reached for the register and Lily scooted aside, looking alarmed. "What did I just say about the special, Lily?"

"I'm sorry, I-" Lily was turning a rare shade of white. Whiter than normal.

"Let me do it. And watch."

Ryan glanced back and forth between them, but said nothing.

"You enter the price, then press the button over here," Theresa said impatiently. "See? I got it from here. Lily, can you make the sodas for him?"

"Fine," Lily muttered, reaching to count off the cups.

"So you're the errand boy, now?" she asked Ryan, entering the last of the order. "Your total's sixty-eight fifty-three."

"That's pretty much what I do." He counted off the bills. "No tip jar?"

"Talk to Gary and suggest one. He won't listen to us." She shrugged and took the money from him. "Okay, your change is one forty-seven..." She counted out one dollar bill, a quarter, two dimes and two pennies, dropping them into his open palm, which was still dirty from the construction site.

"Number 156 is up!" Manny called.

Theresa glanced over her shoulder. "Oh, that guy went outside," she said, reaching for it. She turned back to Ryan. "Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back." She picked up 156 to carry it out to the waiting customer.

The guy was waiting impatiently by the picnic tables, where she plastered on a fake smile and dumped his lunch on his table, then promptly dropped the smile as she turned back to the restaurant.

She opened the front door and saw that Ryan was now leaning over by Lily's register as she lined up the sodas she had filled.

"...sometime?" Ryan was asking.

Lily looked somewhat embarrassed. "I don't know, I mean..." she stammered. Theresa felt the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.

"You done with those cokes yet?" Theresa snapped. Lily straightened up, shocked.

"Just... just three more," Lily murmured, not looking at either of them. Ryan, too, was avoiding her gaze.

"Make sure you put them in a holder. He's got to get like twelve of them by himself."

"I can handle it," Ryan said. He jerked his thumb at the parking lot. "I got the company truck, I think I can manage." He offered a slight grin at Lily, which caused Theresa's heart to turn a somersault.

"Everything look all right?" Theresa asked abruptly.

Ryan blinked at her. "Yeah, no, sure."

"The sausage pizza, that's yours, right? I mean, to eat?"

His eyes flitted quickly. "Um. I actually got pepperoni today."

"Oh," she said, not quite sure what to say. "I didn't even think you liked pepperoni."

Ryan blinked, looking somewhat perplexed. "Well. I do."

Theresa started fitting the sodas into a tray. "Well. Enjoy it."

"I'll just get this load out to the truck – be back in a sec." Ryan picked up the first two bags of food and beat a quick path for the door, eager to get out.

Theresa shook her head as she took the last soda from Lily.

"You don't have to be such a bitch, you know," Lily said, putting a hand on her hip.

Theresa's head shot up. "Excuse me?"

"I don't like him. I told you that. So get a grip."

"I'm not being a bitch because I think he's flirting with you. I'm being a bitch because you should know how to do your job by now."

"We're busy! You make mistakes, too."

"I got you this job. I went to bat for you. The least you could do is step up to the plate."

Lily frowned. "I think you're mixing your metaphors, Theresa."

"_Fuck_ my metaphors!" Theresa shouted, just as Ryan walked back into the store. He froze in the doorway and glanced back and forth between them, hesitating in the doorway, looking anxious.

"I'm going to the bathroom," Theresa muttered, and she charged off for the back, leaving a very puzzled Ryan and Lily in her wake.

She hesitated in the small hallway outside the bathrooms. The sounds of the dining room were still making their way back, ever so faintly. She could hear Ryan's tone, at first puzzled, then low and joking. She wanted him to come after her. But of course he wouldn't. She knew better. She moved to the pay phone on the wall between the men's and women's rooms.

Theresa took a deep breath and picked up the receiver. She dug in her pocket for a quarter, dropped it into the phone, and then entered the numbers she had memorized.

"'Lo?"

"Eddie... hi, it's Theresa."

"Oh," he said, his voice sounding wary. Defensive. Guarded. "Hey."

She licked her lips, feeling her heart pounding in her chest. She glanced back towards the dining room, then looked away.

"Listen... what are you doing tomorrow night?"

There was silence on his end for a long moment before he spoke. "Tomorrow night? Why?"

She leaned forward, resting her forehead on the wall. "I was just wondering if you were busy is all." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Because I'm not."

His response was a jumble to her. She felt the speed of everything picking up, she felt her life slipping away. She felt the cliff receding beneath her feet, throwing her off before she was ready to jump. She was in midair now, and there was no telling when she would land, or what would happen when she did. But one thing was certain: Theresa was no longer standing still.


	13. The First Date

_Author's Note: I've gotten a handful of feedbacks on various sites about Eddie that I just wanted to address, people suggesting that he's out of character, that he's too nice, that he's not that much of a calming presence. I realize that I'm biased as the author, but I disagree. The thing about abusive relationships like Theresa and Eddie's is that they start for a reason. Very few women go in to relationships thinking that they're going to be abused, and very often abusive men have a lot of good qualities that the women use to justify staying with them. Whether or not Eddie is in character is up to you as a reader to decide, but for everyone concerned that he's too "nice", I just urge you to proceed with caution in your own relationships. Because you truly never know and the warning signs usually don't come until much, much later. I'm writing Eddie in this story very well aware of where he's going in the future and am trying to draw him as realistically as I'm capable of doing as an author based on my own experience and my own knowledge of human behavior. I felt that I would be irresponsible to not respond to some of those particular feedback comments, because they do concern me a great deal. Moving on..._

Chapter 13: The First Date

Theresa clutched her purse to her side nervously. She glanced around the parking lot, scanning not only for Eddie's truck but for Arturo's car, or Trey's car. Or anybody who would see her and wonder why Theresa was in front of the second-run multiplex on a sweltering hot Friday night in summer in a skirt and high heels. She felt herself wondering as well.

It wasn't like she hadn't hooked up with other guys. Ryan had been her first, but he was far from being her only. There was the blowjob with Patrick "Harold Hill" Terrell last year at the cast party, and she'd hooked up with Jamie Vega a couple of times here and there. But this was different. This mattered so much more. She knew that. It wasn't just because Patrick Terrell was a clothes hanger away from coming out of the closet. This was completely different in every way. The parking lot of the movie theater was worlds away from the back room of Jamie Vega's trailer.

"Theresa?"

She'd missed Eddie's entrance somehow, and now he caught her off guard. He looked nicer, he had on a clean button-down shirt, and he'd combed his hair down, and since when did Eddie wear _cologne_...?

"Hi." She tried to smile. Normally she'd hug him. Wouldn't she? Was that appropriate now? What did people _do_ on a first date, anyway?

He leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek. Okay. She could handle that. She forced a smile as he backed off.

"If you want, we can put your bike in the truck," he offered, gesturing in the direction where he'd parked.

She hesitated. She'd been the one to insist on arriving separately, she hadn't wanted anyone in the Atwood house to see his car there. Even if he came over to see Arturo all the time. This was different. Very, very different.

"After the movie?" she asked.

"Sure, okay," he said, blinking.

"I didn't get tickets yet," she apologized, feeling useless.

"It's okay. I'll get 'em," Eddie said. He offered an encouraging smile. "C'mon."

Theresa reached for her purse as they approached the ticket window. Eddie frowned down at her.

"What are you doing?"

"Aren't we buying tickets?"

"Put that away already," he admonished. "This is a date, remember?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Huh?"

"I'm paying."

"Paying?" she echoed.

"Yeah, you know, for you?" He gave her a cute smile. "Since I asked you out."

Theresa considered this. "Actually, I thought I-"

"-Only cause you said no the first time," he interrupted her. "Two for Sweet Home Alabama, 7:10."

She reached for her purse again. "But you don't have a job."

"Yeah, I do. Now. Didn't I tell you?"

"No," she said, amazed. "Eddie!"

"Yeah, I got hired at the plant. They're hiring again. Foreman. So we're celebrating."

She didn't know why this should make the knot in her stomach twist so much more than it already was. Eddie handed her a ticket. "On me."

"Thanks," she said at last, as he moved to hold the door open for her.

"So. Foreman. Wow. When did you find out?"

"Yesterday." He stopped in the lobby. "So, popcorn?"

She shook her head. "That's okay."

"C'mon." He led her to the concessions stand. "For you, anything. Raisinets, or Junior Mints?"

"Eddie-"

"Yeah, the Raisinets get stuck in my teeth, too. So Junior Mints are okay, right?"

"Eddie, I'm okay."

"No, you want those mints. I can see it in your eyes." He peered into them, and she could see the playful twinkle in his irises.

"You don't have to do this."

"You're right. Okay. What soda do you drink?"

She relented. "Dr. Pepper?"  
  
"Okay." He turned to the kid at the concessions stand. "Two large Dr. Peppers and a large popcorn. Oh, and a Junior Mints. And a thing of gummi bears."

"Eddie?" she asked, apprehensive.

"What?" He turned to grasp her by the shoulders. "Theresa. Let me treat you."

"I-" She sighed.

"This is what guys do. For girls. In case you didn't know."

"What's that mean?" she demanded, but he had turned to pay for his over-priced booty, and if he heard her, he didn't let on.

She accepted the soda and candy reluctantly, and tagged after Eddie and his giant popcorn into the theater. He was so late they'd already missed the first previews. Theresa loved previews. She and Ryan used to sneak into the theater by paying for one movie and spending all day sneaking around. They hadn't done it in ages. She missed that. They never had time anymore. But back then, if their carefully crafted schedule meant missing the previews, they always waited for the next movie time.

She settled herself beside Eddie and tucked her Dr. Pepper into the drink holder, leaning over for a sip. He held out the popcorn and she took a handful. She did love popcorn. She and Ryan never bought it, though. Too over-priced. Sometimes they'd buy a bag at the convenience store and sneak it in for fun. It was never fresh and buttery, though, like the popcorn now clutched in Eddie's hand, which was possibly shaking a little out of nerves.

She could hardly focus on the screen in the darkness. She was too aware of Eddie beside her, his eating, his slurping, his breathing, his cologne. And when his arm settled around her, gently stroking her shoulder, squeezing her elbow, she didn't know what to do. She leaned in to him, mindlessly nibbling at her Junior Mints.

Would he try to kiss her?

No. This wasn't some hook-up.

The realization hit her hard. It wasn't. Eddie wasn't after sex. Well, he was. He was a boy, of course he was. But there was something more. He wanted... attention. Gratitude.

Eddie wanted – he wanted _her_.

His hand dropped from her shoulder to her hand, perched between them on the armrest, and he wove his fingers around hers. After a few moments, she squeezed back as if to remind him that she was still there.

His palm felt a little sweaty, and she knew hers did too, but neither of them let go. Neither of them wanted to let go. She was painfully aware of every molecule that was touching Eddie, every atom that made contact. Her entire being was focused in the palm of her hand, in her gently squeezing fingers.

As soon as the credits started, Eddie jumped up.

"Wait," she sighed, then stopped. She and Ryan always stayed for the credits. But she wasn't with Ryan now.

"Yeah?" Eddie prompted.

Theresa stood to join him. "So. Food?"

Dinner was at 53 Chinese, over egg rolls and fried noodles and chopsticks. Only the chopsticks weren't used for eating.

"Eddie!" Theresa shrieked in a low, hysterical hiss as he did his walrus imitation, chopsticks hanging from his mouth.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he whispered back, holding back laughter. "That was - yeah, that was definitely inappropriate."

"But this is my favorite," she said, and promptly shoved her own chopsticks up her nose, sending Eddie in to a fit.

"That's Ryan's," she admitted. "I stole it."

He set his on top of his head. "Now I'm an alien!"

"They are gonna kick us _out_ of here," Theresa protested through her giggles.

"So what if they do? We'll do something else."

"But I love their buffet here. I can't get banned. Ryan and I get stuffed here."

Eddie leaned back, suddenly irritated, dropping his chopsticks on the table. "Right. Of course you do."

"What?" she asked, befuddled. "Eddie-"

"Okay. Can we go for two minutes without mentioning Ryan Atwood? Please?"

She leaned back in her own seat, hurt. "Eddie. He's my best friend."

"No. This is not 'best friends'. You're, you're obsessed with him, that's what. You can't shut up about him for, like, ten minutes? Five?" He leaned in and grabbed her hand. "You're here with me, Theresa. Look at me." She wanted to pull away but she didn't. She couldn't. "Whatever it is that you two do? Forget about it. For now. Okay?"

Her chin dropped as she stared down at his hand, clutching her tightly, not wanting to let her go. And it _was_ different. Very different.

He stopped suddenly, looking crestfallen at her expression. "Oh god. No. I shouldn't have – I mean-"

But she was shaking her head. "No." She took a deep breath and tried to smile. "Okay. Maybe I'm a little fixated on Ryan."

He snorted. "A little?"

"Hey," she warned.

He put his hands up. "Okay, okay."

She shrugged helplessly. "It's who I am. Who he is."

"What about who I am?" Eddie's voice was halting, hesitant, questioning.

She peered at him. "Who are you?" she asked, her voice serious and quiet. Gentle.

He stared back at her. She had never noticed how probing his eyes could be. How soft his lips looked. How angular his jaw was.

He opened his mouth, starting to speak, but before he could get a sound out, something seized her. She leaned across the table, her eyes fluttering closed, and she lightly brushed her lips against his.

The shock of the first kiss set her reeling. Her eyes flew open, straight into Eddie's closed eyes as he leaned in again, wanting. After a moment, she relaxed back in to it. She let his mouth push at hers, his tongue tightly seeking her out, until the time felt right to pull back, pull off.

They stared across the table at each other.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Eddie."

She took a long moment to study him. His mouth hung open as if he could barely believe what had just happened to him. What had just begun.

"Hi, Eddie," she said in a careful whisper. "I'm Theresa."

"Hi, Theresa." His mouth slowly settled into a grin. And she allowed herself to join him.

The truck turned the corner onto her street, and it couldn't have possibly been any louder, and Theresa found herself glancing around nervously, looking for familiar profiles lurking in the shadows. She felt extremely conspicuous all of a sudden, like every eye in every house was watching her, waiting for her to confess, to beg for forgiveness. But she wasn't going to. She had nothing to apologize for.

"So..." Eddie began. "I had a really... _really_ good time tonight."

She glanced down at her hands, her pale, unmarked wrists. "Me, too," she admitted softly.

"I don't know if you want to do this again, or what, but if you ever do, I just want you to know-"

"Eddie!" She cut him off. "It's okay."

He glanced at her sideways. "'Okay'...?"

"I'd really," and she cleared her throat. "_Really_. Like to see you again. I mean-" She blinked. "Of course I'll _see _you again, but I'd really like to – to _see_. You again."

A relieved smile settled on his face. "You mean it?"

"Of course I do, you big lump. Don't be silly." She paused, letting her own grin fade. "D'you think... you think you could drop me off at the corner?"

Eddie licked his lips, looking much less enthusiastic all of a sudden. "Yeah, no. Sure."

She stared out the window as they approached her house. "So... call me? Or... I'll call you."

"Or I'll find you. Whatever." Eddie stopped at the corner and leaned back in the seat. "I want to walk you in."

"I know."

"I know I can't."

She sighed. "Eddie-"

"Just remember I'm here, okay? And I want to walk you in. That's all."

"Right." She offered a sad smile before leaning over for one last kiss. They lingered there, and she could tell he didn't want to stop, and she felt bad that she did. But all she wanted to do was go inside and throw herself on the bed and play Macy Gray and try to figure out why she couldn't understand anything she was feeling.

She pulled away and fumbled for the door latch. Eddie climbed out of his side and moved around to retrieve her bike. As he leaned the handlebars toward her she could see how much he wanted to kiss her again, so she grabbed her bike quickly to walk it up the block.

She froze as she looked toward her house.

She saw something moving in the bushes. Ryan? No. A cat jumped out, slinking along the sidewalk, headed for home. She raised a hand to her chest, realizing just how nervous she truly was.

What was she so afraid of, anyway?

It was only Eddie, after all.


	14. The Future

Theresa was in no hurry to leave the bookstore. She had nowhere to be. Nowhere important. And she wasn't as excited as she'd expected to be about Order of the Phoenix, which was finally tucked in the bag along with her receipt under her arm. All this time waiting and now she didn't want to leave. She still found herself gravitating toward the magazine rack out of habit.

She wasn't in the mood for a Cosmo. The last thing she needed right now was _more_ men in her life. Her hair was in a ponytail today, and she was wearing her baggy Les Mis t-shirt and jeans and flip-flops. She wanted to feel unattractive; god, did she ever. But it wasn't working.

She picked up a copy of _Future Today_ and stared at the illustration on the cover. In it, a towheaded blond child sat slumped in front of a TV, oblivious to the sight of a too-happy couple behind him. She glanced at the headline. "TODAY'S BLENDED FAMILIES: How we can help our children cope with modern-day relationships."

Her interest piqued, Theresa flipped through, looking for the article. New Issues in Special Education, The Demise of Social Security, Over-Population in Urban America...

"Miss? You gotta buy that."

Theresa's head shot up, annoyed. "Can I fucking _decide_ first?"

"Either buy it or keep moving," the kid said crossly.

Prick. She shot him a sneer and replaced the magazine, scanning the rack with her eyes only until he drifted away.

She checked to make sure no one was looking before sliding the magazine casually into her shopping bag. She waited a few innocent moments before making her way out of the store. Served them right, having such obnoxious employees.

* * *

She watched that night for the light to come on in Ryan's room, barely visible above the chain-link fence separating their houses, before she slipped outside, into the Atwoods' yard, and over to Ryan's windowsill.

She peeked in. Behind the blinds, she could see Ryan lying on his bed, his eyes open, one arm flung across his chest as he stared at the ceiling. He was used to her coming in through the front and would never guess she was watching him. But she didn't want to go through the front door now. Not with AJ.

Hesitantly, she reached up to knock on the window. The Atwoods didn't have screens. Trey had destroyed them a few years before – Theresa was never clear on the circumstances – and they had never been replaced.

Ryan sat up, looking perplexed for a minute before walking over to open the window. He stared down at her. "Theresa?"

She held up the bag from the bookstore. "Look what I got!"

"A book."

"Not a book, jackass. Order of the Phoenix!"

"What's that?"

She stared at him, not comprehending. "Harry Potter?"

"Oh."

"I thought you liked Harry Potter."

He blinked. "The movies were cool."

"The movies?" she asked, aghast.

"Did you want something, or...?" His thumb motioned behind him.

She gave a resigned sigh. "Can I come in?"

He paused and glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah, hold on." He moved to lock the door, then returned. "Okay."

She handed him the bag then swung herself onto the windowsill in what she hoped was a graceful manner. He hesitantly offered a hand but she braced herself on the window frame and hopped down by herself.

"Since when did your door get a lock?"

"Since always," he said. "I just thought-"

"Right." She nodded. Of course. It wasn't the same household anymore. AJ was in charge. She fingered the Playboy bunny stickers on the wall. "Trey never came back for these, huh?"

"They kind of don't... come off," Ryan admitted, looking away. He passed the shopping bag to her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, peeking inside. "That reminds me. I almost forgot. I got you something." She pulled out the magazine and Ryan stared at it.

"I give up. What do I need a copy of _Future Today_ for?" he asked skeptically.

"I thought you might like the articles. Okay, so it's not a porno." She rolled her eyes. "I nicked it!"

He sighed. "Theresa..."

"What? The clerk was being a little bitch. When was the last time I nicked anything for you?"

"Today, apparently."

She grinned and smacked him, but he caught her arms as she contacted his shoulder, holding her tightly.

"Ow!" she snapped, half-annoyed.

He leaned over, kissing her before she was even aware. It had been too long. She heard the book, magazine and bag all fall to the floor separately. Slam... crackle... plop. She had to giggle at the absurdity of it.

The absurdity of it all- 

"No, wait!" she said, pushing him off, his tongue sliding out of her mouth.

"Uh?" he asked, his eyes still fixed on her mouth.

She sighed. "I can't..."

For a moment, he looked desperate. Then, resigned, he settled himself onto the bed.

"This about the Mike thing?"

She started to say no, it wasn't about the Mike thing. But wasn't it? Really, hadn't it started with Mike? So she sighed. "Kind of..."

Ryan looked dejected. "It's okay, I get it," he said.

"Ryan-"

"I mean, you gotta do what you think, uh, feel, uh..." He was struggling for the words that were supposed to fix it. But there were no words that could fix it. None that Ryan Atwood was willing to say.

"Ryan, I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry I didn't stop that sorry son-of-a-bitch earlier," he said grimly.

"Ryan!" She grabbed his shoulders. "It's okay. I'm. Okay." She dropped her hands and straightened back up. "I just..." Just what?

I can't do this when Eddie is...

When you and Lily are...

When I don't understand...

"No." He tilted his chin up. "It's okay. I get it."

But he didn't. But she couldn't say that.

She turned away and her eyes fell on the gold chain hanging from the window latch. "Oh, wow," she said, moving over to touch the cross dangling from it. "Hey, I remember this." Her hand dropped and she looked up at him. "You used to wear it all the time."

Ryan shrugged. "I stopped."

"I see. Decided the bling-bling was a little too much?"

"Bling, what bling?" he snorted. "My mom bought it for, like, five bucks at the discount store." He grew serious again. "I guess I just decided I didn't like it anymore."

"It made you look tough," she said.

"I look tough without it," he said immediately.

"Right, of course," she said automatically. "Sure you do."

He eyed her, suspicious. "Anyway. Maybe it's just the cross thing. It was too much. I don't know."

She turned to finger it again. "Yeah. I know what you mean. It's hard to believe in stuff right now. With everything."

"Yeah. Guess so."

Was that why he seemed so empty lately, so lonely? She bit her lip. She'd stopped believing in those things a couple of years ago, and yet she didn't think she looked as lost as Ryan did. Maybe she was wrong. She studied the cross, remembered how she used to stare at it as it sat on Ryan's chest all through math class. It looked more expensive than it was. It looked more convincing than it was. But Theresa had never been fooled, she had spent countless hours hiding in the church basement with Ryan, playing cards or smoking or gobbling potato chips when they were supposed to be in Sunday School upstairs. Gold cross or no gold cross.

What did she believe in now, anyway? She didn't believe in the cross anymore, that was for sure. She didn't believe in herself too much lately, either. And she couldn't believe in Ryan anymore, either. Not now…

"Read the magazine," was all she said. "Please? ...For me."

He squinted at her. "Sure. Okay."

"Promise?"

"Yeah, no. I swear. If you promise you'll take it back when I'm done."

"Ryan-" He raised an eyebrow at her and she relented. "Fine. Sure. Whatever."

She paused, swinging the bag, the oversized blue hardback bouncing mindlessly. "I would make you borrow my Harry Potters, but you won't give them back."

"Will too."

"Will not. How long have you had my Great Gatsby, anyway?"

Ryan snorted, opening his sock drawer and rooting through. "Here! Geez." He tossed the paperback at her and she caught it by a corner, holding it away from her in disgust. She didn't know what had happened. Ryan used to take such good care of her things when he borrowed them, and now...?

"Did you drag this thing through the fucking _mud_? You are so not touching my Harry Potters. Jesus."

"Yes, my child?" he asked with a somber expression.

Theresa bit her lip and closed her eyes as the silent giggle came. She hurled Gatsby back at him. "Damn you! Keep it!"

Sometimes she wanted to kill him. And sometimes she wanted to do what she did now, which was to jump on him, hands on his shoulders, knocking him backwards onto the bed, pinning her knees on either side of him and assaulting his mouth with her own. He responded almost instantly, ready and waiting, his body meeting her own, arms pulling her in to place, reaching, cupping...

Her own voice cut through the sound of Ryan's heavy breathing. "No!"

He struggled to follow as she sat up. "But – but – you started it!"

"I know, I – but Jesus, and leaning, and I gotta go."

She grabbed her bag, scrambling for the window.

"Wait-"

She shook her head. "I'll see you later." Not in a locked bedroom. Alone. With Ryan, and his slightly dank scent, the tank top sculpting his muscles. It was no use. She couldn't resist. She bounded over the window.

"Theresa!"

He was leaning – leaning! – out the window now, his arms propped on the sill, that look of concern on his face. She drooped her shoulders. She was helpless before him.

"Just – when you feel ready. You know. Or – whatever." He licked his lips. "Your call."

She couldn't look at him. She couldn't understand him anymore. Nothing about Ryan made sense anymore.

"Call me?"  
  
She relented, glancing over her shoulder. "I got your number." She paused. "I memorized it. In seventh grade." And he still thought he had to write it in her yearbook. She looked around. "I gotta... go."

She crashed through the brush, through his littered yard, around the fence to her own neat and ordered lawn.

She would spend the night reading Harry Potter by herself. Because that was easy and it made sense and she didn't have to decide anything. And something like that sounded like a very, very good idea right now.

* * *

Theresa's third date with Eddie was to dinner at El Bandito. This time she feigned a headache to return home early, even though he was making her laugh. Theresa didn't want to laugh. She wanted to brood. She wanted to be miserable.

"Can I call you tomorrow?" he asked, looking into her eyes hopefully as they sat parked a block from her house.

She sighed. "After ten."

"Why?"

"Mama and Turo will be at work."

"Theresa," and now it was his turn to sigh. "How long are we gonna do this?"

She knew the answer right away: until she was sure it would last. But she shook her head. "Eddie..."

"I know, I know. Give you time. Well." He looked around. "From where I am? We got all the time in the world."

We. The word echoed in her mind as she trudged down the street, the taste of Eddie's breath mints still fresh on her tongue. She licked her lips.

We. She used to think of herself and Ryan as a unit. Inseparable. But now? They were separate all the time. She just couldn't think of herself with Eddie. She couldn't think of Eddie as being a constant force. Eddie… Eddie, the guy who used to hang out in Arturo's room whenever he fought with his dad, Eddie who used to steal her bras and hang them up on the front fence for kicks, the jackass.

"-Dude, it _is_ her!" Trey and Arturo were leaning against the Atwoods' fence, Trey pointing at her, astonished. "Told you!"

Arturo ignored him. The look on his face was one of slowly dawning realization, and it frightened her down to her core. "Where'd you come from?" he demanded.

"Out," she said, avoiding eye contact with either of them. "Let me through?"

"Hey." Arturo blocked her. "Was that Eddie's truck?" Now she looked at him, fearful. No. Not here. Not in front of Trey. Not in front of Ryan's house.

"He gave me a ride. 'Scuse me."

"Nice skirt," Trey said, the words rolling off him, a challenge.

She shrugged, looking past him. "Huh. Thanks."

"Did Eddie like it?"

Her shoulders fell. "Trey."

"What? I'm just asking."

"So ask him already. I don't know." She started to shove her way past them.

"Hey." Arturo grabbed her arm. "We ain't finished."

"So finish already." She shook him off violently and took a quick step backwards.

The guys exchanged a look that gave Theresa a feeling of utter dread.

"We know what you're doing, don't think we don't," Arturo said.

"Tramp," Trey muttered under his breath.

"I said shut the _fuck_ up, Atwood," Arturo snapped. "Theresa. What do you think you're doing here?"

There was no point denying anything or lying to Arturo. She could lie to Ryan, or Becca, or Eddie or Trey. But not Turo.

"I don't know," she said, hearing the helpless tone in her own voice. Why did he have to do this in front of Trey, of all people? "Okay? I. Don't. Know. All I know is, something's going on between me and Eddie, and nothing's going on between me and Ryan. I don't _know_."

"Does Ryan know?" Trey spat at her. "Or should I just ask him?"

"You can't," she said clearly. "You can, but – you can't tell him about Eddie, Trey. Not yet."

"So you _are_ a lying whore."

The punch caught all of them by surprise, apparently even including Arturo, who had thrown it. Trey staggered back against the fence, hand clapped to his cheek where Turo had decked him.

Theresa's hands were clapped to her mouth, where they'd flown in astonishment.

Arturo, for his part, was staring at his fist, not quite comprehending what had just happened.

"God, oh god. Shit. Trey, I'm-"

"Don't apologize to me," Trey said to Arturo. "Apologize to Ryan. You're supposed to be his friend." He turned to Theresa. "And so are you."

"I am his friend," she said, outraged. She didn't know why she was so much more bothered by an insinuation of disloyalty to Ryan than she was at Trey calling her a whore. "But just his friend! And what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"She's got a point, man," Arturo said. "He don't need to know. He don't want to."

Trey turned back to Theresa. "You'd lie to my brother."

"You lie to him all the time."

"Yeah. But you don't," he said immediately.

She took a step back. "Trey."

"Think about it," Arturo pleaded. "You know how he gets, man, he'd flip out, he don't need no reason."

Trey looked back and forth between them, doubtful. "Maybe somebody _should_ be flippin' out."

"He's under enough pressure as it is," Theresa pointed out. "He doesn't need this. I want him to be happy." She took a deep breath. "It's not like he didn't hit on Lily last week. I heard him." She looked around. "He'll be fine. Without me."

Arturo looked worried. "We're not telling him. He don't need to know. She's-" He stopped. "She's right."

Trey only nodded once. But he looked anything but happy.

Theresa sighed. "You guys..." But Arturo was already shaking his head. "...Thanks?"

Trey turned to her suddenly. "Just get the _fuck _out of my sight," he sneered.

She was only too happy to comply, running into the house straight to her bedroom, where she rid herself of the skirt and top as quickly as possible.

She pulled on her baggiest, most unattractive pajamas and settled herself cross-legged on the bed. She reached for the music box and turned the key, then held it up to study the slowly twirling dancers.

_But I must depend on a wish and a star_

_As long as my heart doesn't know where you are_

He'd be fine without her. She knew the truth.

She was the one who couldn't be fine without him.


	15. The Princess

Theresa tapped the corner of her register as her tongue dangled out from the side of her mouth. She studied the figure before him, his head hanging down as he tried to pretend like he was anything other than embarrassed to run in to her in the middle of the day, in the middle of business, with no preamble whatsoever.

"Well, well, well. Ryan Atwood."

He shrugged sheepishly.

"On gofer duty again, I see?"

"What I get for bein' the kid," he grumbled, flipping through the petty cash in his hand.

"Sorry Lily's not here?"

He stopped in mid-count, eyes still on his hands, not looking up at her. "Idon'tcare," he muttered in one word. He was not convincing. Not to her.

Theresa shook her head at him. "Sure. Uh huh. Want to sell me a waterfront property, too? C'mon, Atwood."

"What?" he protested.

"You know you're early. They just called your order in like ten minutes ago."

He spread his hands. "Then I guess I'm killing time – oh! I almost forgot." He dug in his back pocket and produced a rolled-up magazine that looked like it used to be vaguely familiar.

She stared at it as he flung it onto the counter. "Okay. You do realize there's no way I can return that now, right?"

He shrugged. "Eh."

"So?" She eyed him carefully as she unfolded the picture of the stepfamily on the counter.

"So what?"

"Anything good in there?"

His nose turned up just a little. "You couldn't have nicked a Sports Illustrated or something?"

"Ryan!" she exploded in mock frustration.

"What? I'm just sayin'. You know. Next time a store clerk accidentally sneezes in your direction. Think Sports Illustrated." He grinned.

Theresa cracked up even against her better instincts. "You didn't even read it, did you?"

"Did, too," he said defensively. "You know, I didn't know Social Security sucked so much. So much for my early retirement."

She closed her eyes. "Ryan-" Of course he didn't get it, and now she didn't know why she ever expected him to.

"I mean, really, if _that's_ what we have to look forward to? Life of crime sounds so much more appealing." He tapped the magazine.

It was a joke, but it wasn't funny. Theresa glanced to be sure Gary was busy before leaning in. "Did you – do you know how Arturo really got the LeBaron? I mean-" She glanced down. "He was kidding, right? About it being, you know-" She shrugged as she looked back up to meet his eyes.

"Yeah, no," he said in a monotone. "He was kidding."

"Cause nobody ever tells me anything. Cause I'm the girl. And they all think I'm still twelve years old."

"Aren't you?" He looked puzzled.

"Fuck you, Atwood. I _will_ tell Manny over there to spit on your food."

He laughed. A genuine laugh. One that reached his eyes. She only noticed because they were so rare lately. She didn't know why it made her sad, to see him laughing now. It should make her happy. "Look, I mean, I'm the kid, too. I never know, either. Seriously."

"So there was nothing else good in there?" She flipped through the crumpled magazine pages.

"Uh. I kind of skimmed," he said apologetically. "It was boring. I wasn't kidding about that Sports Illustrated."

"Uh huh." She bit back her own smile.

"It's all scare tactics. 'The Demise of Modern Society!'" He shook his head. "It's completely reactionary."

She stared at him dully. "And to think they almost put you in summer school."

"Well. My point exactly, see. Why rush school, anyway? If we're going to be working until we're all on our third set of hips."  
  
"Order up, chica!"

She turned to see Manny counting off the Allen lunch orders. She moved to help him double-check and bag the meals.

"So seriously, I mean, nobody spat on this, right?" Ryan asked as he hefted the first orders. She made a face at him. "What? I'm kidding!"

But she could never tell when he was kidding any more. That was the problem.

The door swung wildly as he returned for the last set of orders.

"Lily's working tomorrow," Theresa said, not looking up from her register.

"Oh." He was trying to sound disinterested. She rolled her eyes.

"Ryan Atwood. Grow a pair and ask her out already."

"What? No. I-"

She slapped her palms on the counter, leaning forward. "Don't pretend you're not lusting after her. You see these eyes? They do work. I'm not blind, you know. Twenty-twenty vision, actually."

"Yeah, but-" No. He had already admitted it. Now was too late for 'but's. "She's not interested."

"You don't know that."

"You do."

Maybe she did. Maybe she just wanted to make sure he did, too. And maybe she didn't.

"So you'll never know. Hit on her already. That thing at Trey's tomorrow. Ask her to come. Don't be all wishy-washy, get specific. Worst she'll do is say no."

"Yeah," he said, considering. "Yeah, guess so."

Theresa gave him a wry smile.

"Why do you care so much all of a sudden?" he asked. He tilted his head to study her.

"Because," she said slowly, "I just want to see you happy." She realized with a start that it was true. Well, sort of. Not really.

Ryan shrugged. "I'll think about it."

She bit her lip as he made his way out with the last of the orders. If Lily made Ryan happy, maybe she could be happy with Eddie, and then everybody could maybe be happy. And that wouldn't be so bad.

It wasn't like stranger things hadn't happened.

* * *

It looked disturbingly like Trey's place hadn't been cleaned since the last party, and a bottle of Coors Light sitting on the cardboard coffee table made Theresa shiver.

"You all right?" Ryan asked her, concerned. He was leaning against the window, looking outside, anxious.

"Yeah, just cold," she said without thinking.

He laughed. He thought it was a joke. Of course he did. Trey had no air conditioning.

"Want a soda?" Ryan added, popping the tab on his own Dr. Pepper.

Theresa turned to consider this. It was 7:30 and the party should have started at 7. Well, "party" was a vague misnomer. They were renting Terminator 3. Eddie and Arturo weren't back from Blockbuster yet, and Trey had gone to pick up Becca and Lily, leaving Ryan and Theresa to wait here. She wasn't sure if it was deliberate on anyone's part or not. Didn't matter – Ryan was uncharacteristically antsy, he'd been bouncy and distractible the whole bike ride over, and still seemed nervous.

"Nah," Theresa said. "Think we oughta get rid of some of the, uh...?"

"...Mess?" Ryan filled in.

"Well. While I realize Trey does have a unique decorating style-"

"It's not exactly conducive to him getting laid," Ryan said, then stopped, frozen, the expression on his face clearly indicating that he wished he hadn't finished that particular sentence, in that way.

She shrugged, pretending she didn't care. "Not like that stopped him before."

Ryan considered this. "True."

Theresa started collecting the assorted empty bottles and cans. Leave it to Trey to never leave a beer half-empty. She racked her brain for a snappy remark. "This place looks like a heroin den. Just... substitute beer. For heroin."

"Trey doesn't do heroin," Ryan said seriously, then added, "Not yet, anyway."

"Yeah?" Theresa asked, her voice neutral.

"You _know_ unemployment is the only thing keeping him from being a total cokehead. He would be if he could afford it." Ryan paused. "He does do a lot of beer, though."

Theresa suddenly remembered something Arturo had said. "Does Trey ever deal?"

"I think. Maybe sometimes. I don't know."

"You don't know?" Theresa echoed. "He hasn't worked since Christmas. Like, how much _could_ he be bringing in?"

"A lot. I guess. There are some serious junkies around here," Ryan said.

"Tell me about it," she replied, even though she really didn't know.

"Remember when that guy got shot over by your Pizza King last month?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah?"

He took the last swig of his Dr. Pepper and wiped his mouth off. "That was drugs," he said definitively.

"Really."

"Oh yeah. Cops couldn't prove it, but that's what I heard."

She nodded slowly, thinking of Arturo hiding things in his room and turning up with mysterious new cars. No. Better not to think about it.

"So then does Trey recycle?" She turned to him with an armful of bottles.

He snorted. "Do pigs have wings? No. Trash it." He carefully set his can on top of her armful.

A car screeched to the curb out front. Theresa carried the bottles into the kitchen – was it her imagination, or was the floor at an angle, and god this house was horrendous – and returned to find Trey and Becca and Lily loping into the house.

"We cleaned up for you," Ryan said pointedly.

Trey looked bored. "Good. Where's my movie, yo?"

Ryan gestured around. "Do you _see_ Eddie and Arturo?" Theresa had to giggle, quietly.

"My mom loves Schwarzenegger now," Becca declared. She flopped on to the armchair, and Theresa could swear she saw a dust cloud rise around her. She decided not to say anything. "She hates his movies but she's voting for him anyway."

"Trey, who are you voting for?" Theresa asked, suddenly interested.

"Voting?" Trey echoed, and from behind him, Ryan shook his head. She tried to catch his eye, but he was still looking sideways at Lily.

"There they are," Lily said with obvious relief, and ran to the door. She had been lurking awkwardly to the side since her arrival. Looking very much like she would rather be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Arturo and Eddie entered looking suspiciously sheepish. She had a bad feeling about this. "Guys," Theresa said apprehensively.

Trey shot a hostile glare at Eddie before addressing Arturo directly. "Where's Arnold?"

"Um..." Arturo and Eddie exchanged a glance.

"What?" Becca demanded, folding her arms.

"Terminator 3 was all gone," Arturo said. "So me and Eddie, we had to make an executive decision."

"What?" Trey asked.

The guys exchanged another glance. "It's hard for us to agree on anything, okay? I mean – anything the girls would like." Eddie glanced apologetically at Theresa.

"Out with it, jackass," Trey snapped, still glaring at Eddie. Theresa swallowed.

Arturo held out the cassette. Becca shoved her way forward to grab it. She made a face. "The Princess Bride?"

It was all Theresa could do not to make an uncharacteristic shriek of delight. Instead she bit her lip, grinning at Ryan. Sometimes she remembered why she loved her brother and her -

What _was_ Eddie, anyway? To her? A boyfriend? No. A friend? With benefits? Wasn't that what she'd always called Ryan? Oh, to hell with it.

"But I've _seen_ that already," Lily said. "I haven't seen T3."

Ryan looked mildly torn. "You mean you've seen it and you _don't_ want to watch it again?"

Theresa wanted, in that moment, to snatch the cassette from Becca's hands and bash Ryan repeatedly in the head with it, hoping it would clue him in to what a big warning signal this was. Instead, she simply said, "So, popcorn?"

The words seemed to sufficiently nominate her for kitchen duty, so she set to work in Trey's rarely-cleaned kitchen, wiping the occasional stickiness as she went. By the time she carried the beer and popcorn into the living room, the seating arrangements were set. She paused at the door, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. Trey was in the beaten-up armchair, Becca settling comfortably at his feet. Lily was perched on a corner of the couch, Ryan beside her, Eddie on his other side. And Arturo was already stretching out on the floor, a pillow in his lap.

"Hey," Eddie said, noticing her discomfort. "You wanna... sit?" He leapt up, not giving her a chance to respond. She really didn't want to sit. She thought that maybe she wanted to leave. But there seemed to be no choice now, and so she set the bowl of popcorn on the table, perhaps a little too roughly, before heaving herself on to the couch beside Ryan.

He turned and raised his eyebrows at her. "Hi?"

"Hi," she replied curtly, fixing her eyes on the screen.

It was too hard. No. Too hard to sit here with Eddie at her feet, leaning _just_ close enough, gently brushing her leg with his arm. And Ryan at her side, who as far as she could tell, was getting closer and closer to Lily. And farther and farther from her. No. She couldn't look.

By the time Inigo Montoya was scaling the Cliffs of Despair, Becca and Trey had exchanged a whispered giggle and excused themselves. Theresa waited for Eddie to claim the chair, but Arturo beat him to it.

"How come nobody ever _recognizes_ the guy with the mask?" Lily burst out in frustration. "It's not like he had fucking plastic surgery."

Theresa was close enough to Ryan that she could actually feel his shoulders slump in disappointment even as Arturo cracked up. She kicked Eddie slightly, and she could see him grin without turning to look at her.

This wasn't a movie to watch alone. But it wasn't a movie to watch like this, either. With Ryan beside her, afraid to feel up Lily because Theresa was here. And Eddie at her feet, afraid to feel her up because Ryan was here. It was ridiculous. Really. But...

"What in the world could _that_ be?"

The remark from the screen was punctuated by a loud, masculine moan from Trey's room, which made five heads shoot up in amazement. Arturo broke their shock with a loud snort.

"Hey, Romeo! Keep it down, eh?" Eddie yelled.

"Fuck you," came Trey's response, sounding less than sincere. Theresa made a face.

Ryan seemed to be breathing a little faster beside her. Theresa looked over. Lily was still closer. She looked away and scooted as far into the corner of the couch as she could.

Another grunt, this time sounding like Becca's voice. Arturo leapt to his feet. "Atwood! I'm comin' in there!"

The response was a crash from the bedroom. Now even Ryan looked alarmed. "No!" Trey yelped from behind the door. "Wait – we're-"

The door flew open and Becca stumbled out, dragging a rumpled Trey behind her. She was giggling still, and he looked bashful as they settled down on the floor.

"D'you guys mind?" Ryan asked, irritated.

Trey cleared his throat, but said nothing. He leaned his face in Becca's shoulder and she giggled again.

Theresa could take no more. She jumped up and felt all eyes on her. "I'm going to the bathroom," she announced.

Lily leapt up. "Me too," she said, relieved. Theresa glanced at her, puzzled, but said nothing.

Much to her surprise, Becca stood as well. "I'm coming, too."

"But there's only one bathroom," Trey stammered, looking to the other guys for support. Eddie and Ryan looked away. Arturo was still fixated on the movie.

"We know, shithead," Theresa snapped, and turned to follow Becca to the bathroom in back of the house.

The girls filed in and closed the door. The moment it was shut, Lily turned on Becca and Theresa took a step away from the two of them out of a sense of self-protection. This did not look good.

"The fuck was that?" Lily exploded.

Becca looked mortified. "Excuse me for getting a little action."

"Like it's not bad enough I'm stuck here with _Ryan_ trying to make-" Lily stopped short, staring at Theresa with sudden concern.

"Trying to make a move?" Theresa finished. "I know. Shit, I told him to."

The girls were silent for a moment. "You did?" Lily didn't sound convinced.

"Yeah. I did. So what?"

Becca slumped against the sink. "Damn. I can't take this. I need a cigarette."

Lily produced a pack and offered around. Relieved, Theresa took one as well. She produced her Bic and the girls took turns lighting up.

"You told Ryan to make out with me?" Lily repeated.

"Course I did," Theresa said. "He's crazy about you."

"But you two-"

"I'm seeing somebody else, why shouldn't he?" Theresa asked. The warm, familiar smell of smoke was filling the air, calming her frayed nerves.

Becca jumped on the sentence. "You are? Who?"

"Nobody," Theresa said. "Nobody important. Look, forget I said anything. She's right! Cut out the PDA. None of us in that room want to see it. Not now." Not with Ryan's brother. Not with her brother. Not with Ryan, not with Eddie. She stared down at the cigarette in her hand.

Becca frowned. "I can't help it if I'm the only one around here with a man." She stopped short. "Wow. I'm sorry. I meant-"

"I told you," Theresa said, tucking her left arm behind her right elbow as she held her cigarette off to the side. "You're not."

Lily looked down at the floor. "So I'm the only single one."

"Lily," Becca sighed.

"Maybe I should just go for Ryan," she said, sounding dejected.

"He's not that bad a catch," Theresa pointed out.

"He _could_ be cute," Becca added.

"Eddie's cuter," Lily said.

Theresa's head snapped up. "No he's not," she said automatically.

"He's taller," Becca pointed out.

"And Ryan's just so mean sometimes."

"Only because he likes you," Theresa said.

Lily shrugged. "I don't know."

Becca turned and stubbed her cigarette out in the sink before dropping it in the garbage. "Okay girls. This isn't working." She dug in her purse and produced another cigarette, this one skinny and brown.

"You're not gonna share that with the boys?" Lily asked in surprise.

Becca snorted. "Hells no. Do you think Trey shares anything with me if he's not trying to get laid?"

"When is Trey not trying to get laid?" Theresa asked, amazed.

This caused all three of them to crack up. Theresa coughed a little as she stubbed her own cigarette out in the sink and offered her lighter to Becca so that they could light the joint.

"When is any guy not trying to get laid?" Lily asked critically. "I mean, every guy in that room out there is trying to get laid."

"Arturo's not," Theresa said.

"That's cause he did Portia Blackwell last night."

Theresa felt her nose wrinkling against her will. "Ew. He did not."

Becca merely shrugged and looked away innocently as she lit the joint and took the first drag. She passed it to Theresa. "So then it _is_ Eddie."

Theresa was caught off guard and nearly dropped the joint in the toilet. "What?"

"Your guy. C'mon."

"No – no, he's..."

"You're caught, girl," Becca pointed out. "You just admitted it."

Maybe Becca wasn't as stupid as she pretended sometimes.

"I mean – no, you're here with Trey – and Lily's here with Ryan..."

"Am I?" Lily asked sharply. "Cause I can't tell."

"And 'here with Trey' ain't exactly it," Becca added. "He don't even know how many brothers and sisters I got. Or what I like to eat. Or... or anything. There's sex. That's pretty much it."

"Really?" Theresa asked, passing the joint to Lily.

"I bet Eddie wants more than sex," Lily said, as she accepted it and took her turn.

"Ryan doesn't," Theresa said. "I mean – I don't mean that. He does want more than sex. With you," she said, in deference to Lily. "It's just amazing sometimes, how guys just think with their dicks."

"Mmm-hmmm," Becca said, nodding in agreement, her eyes on Lily.

"So how _is_ Eddie?" Lily asked, passing the joint to Becca. "Like, compared to Ryan?"

"I'm not comparing!" Theresa said, aghast.

"Suit yourself," Lily shrugged.

Someone pounded on the door. "Are you bitches getting stoned in there without us?" Trey shouted.

"What does it smell like?" Theresa shouted back, sending Lily and Becca in to fits.

She took the joint from Becca and leaned against the sink, satisfied. Being a girl wasn't as bad as she thought it was sometimes. At least here she fit in, and she didn't have to worry about what curve ball was going to be thrown at her next. She inhaled deeply off the joint, feeling the marijuana smoke filling her lungs, burning her from the inside out. She didn't want to face Ryan, and she didn't want to face Eddie.

"Hey!" The door flew open, revealing all four guys peering in. "No fair," Arturo complained.

Theresa smiled a thin smile, noticing how all her calm seemed to evaporate once the guys were in the room again. She could feel her teeth grinding, her jaw setting, and her fingers tightened around the joint in her hands.

So this was how it was going to be now.

She wasn't sure she would get used to it.


	16. The Perfect Day

The doorbell rang just as Theresa was dumping the last of the Frosted Flakes in to a bowl. She set the empty box carefully in the trash and made her way to the door.

Somehow, even though it had been a long time since she'd seen the sight, she wasn't surprised at all to see Ryan standing there, dressed for the heat in a blue "Allen and Sons" t-shirt with chopped-off sleeves. After all, he turned up everywhere else now except for her house, and he used to turn up here. It made as much sense as anything else did these days. She hesitated behind the screen door.

"Ryan Atwood. So it _is_ the front door now, then."

He shrugged. "If your mom doesn't care…" He looked flushed and was breathing a little too heavy.

"What's up?" The words were harsher than she expected. She swallowed a little, suddenly feeling ashamed.

"Nothin'… I was just wondering if you were workin' today?"

"Why?"

He poked his head in. "Arturo around?"

"No, he's out. With Eddie."

"Oh." He glanced back around at the street. "Cause I'm bored."

He didn't look bored, he looked like he was upset and trying to cover it. She sighed. There was no point in asking, he would never answer, and she might as well indulge his denial. It was either this or watch Saturday morning cartoons alone. And cartoons sounded mighty good right now. But it was Ryan, and she couldn't help it. "Fine." She stepped aside and he wandered in.

"You eat yet?"

"No, uh-" He blinked. "I kind of, uh, rushed out today."

"Oh." She motioned over her shoulder. "I was gonna have some cereal."

"Okay. Can I steal some?"

"Sure, but I want it back."

He squinted at her. "You're not funny."

"Yeah, and you're a cereal thief. Just remember, I know where you live."

He followed her in to the kitchen where she retrieved the milk. Ryan went straight for the cupboard for a bowl, and the box of Cap'n Crunch as well.

"Hey," he said as they settled on the carpet in the living room in front of SpongeBob Squarepants. "Know what we haven't done in awhile?"

"Uh. What?" She could think of quite a few things, actually.

"Gone to the carnival. It's set up today over at the old Home Depot parking lot. Wanna go?"

She blinked. She hadn't expected him to actually suggest plans. An outing. For the two of them. It seemed oddly anachronistic. And wrong. She was always the one to drag him places, make him do things, try to get him to stop brooding. Which was why she'd given it up in the first place.

"Do you?"

He shrugged. "Kind of. I guess."

She shoveled another bite of Frosted Flakes in to her mouth before saying, around the mouthful of cereal, "So you really are bored today."

"We used to hang out all the time, you know."

"Did we. Really." She couldn't help the dry sarcasm.

"Yeah. And lately it's like you're always busy, and I'm always busy, and we just never do stuff anymore. I mean, just us."

"I hadn't noticed."

He shot her a sideways glance. "Are you makin' fun of me?"

"Do I ever make fun of you?"

Now he rolled his eyes. "So are we gonna go out or what?"

Theresa mouthed her spoon thoughtfully. "Growing up sucks."

Ryan shrugged, and seemed to agree.

They polished off the cereal and he waited impatiently in the living room with SpongeBob while Theresa tried to hastily arrange her hair in butterfly clips and chose the quickest outfit she could grab, a denim skirt and button-down yellow blouse. She'd bought the whole thing at Wal-Mart last summer. She felt like a schoolgirl in it. But that was okay. For today.

"Why do girls take so long to get ready?" Ryan grumbled as she grabbed for her wallet and keys.

"Why do boys never bother?" she countered. "Hang on, are we biking?"

"I wasn't thinking of walking," he said crossly.

"Wait." She ran back to her room for a pair of biker shorts to put on under the skirt. She could hear Ryan impatiently tapping his foot in the hallway as she changed, and she had to smile to herself.

"_You _try riding a bike with nothing but a thong up your crotch," she said as she made her way out of the room.

"I'll keep that in mind."

She stuck her tongue out at him for lack of a better response and followed him out of the house, locking it behind her.

"What was that about growing up?" he asked, puzzled. "Cause if I didn't know any better-"

"Fuck you, Atwood."

They set off for Home Depot and she led the way, listening at every turn for the sound of his bike squeaking after her, stealing glances behind to make sure he was still there. For some reason she had the oddest sense that if she didn't keep watching, if she didn't make sure he was always behind her, that he would disappear.

They chained their bikes to a fence at the edge of the parking lot and started across. Something jumped out at Theresa from across the parking lot, a truck, slightly higher than the cars parked around it. Eddie's truck. She'd recognize it anywhere. She stopped, suddenly and surprisingly afraid.

"C'mon," Ryan said impatiently. "They're gonna run out of funnel cakes if you don't hurry up."

Ryan. Right. He hadn't noticed it. "You just had Cap'n Crunch for breakfast. How could you possibly want more sugar so soon?"

"Cause it's funnel cakes," he said, as if that explained it all.

She shook her head, and trotted after him, trying to force herself to forget about Eddie's truck. Trying to force herself to forget about Eddie.

It was easy, really. Forgetting about Eddie. Especially when Ryan was around. Together, they studied the entrance to the fair, with the fat guy waddling over a stool taking money.

"Five bucks just to enter?" Ryan asked, dejected.

She shook her head. "I got you covered, don't worry." All his money probably was going to his mom and A.J. these days. She had a strong feeling.

"No," he sighed. "Don't do that. We'll sneak in. Or somethin'."

"I thought you were the moral upstanding one here. I seem to recall something about a magazine? Look-" She was about to try to justify it somehow, either because she had invited him, or because of her gender, but none of it actually made sense. She fell silent.

"C'mon." He motioned towards the old Home Depot store, and she followed him along the long chain-link fence that bordered the carnival. She stared through the fence to the ferris wheel, rising up gleefully above the crowd. Children tearing away from their parents screaming. Food dropping to the ground left and right, and birds circling, waiting for their chance to benefit. Her eyes landed on a young couple walking along, a girl she knew from school, one of the chunky-thigh set, with a boy dressed in baggy jeans and a wifebeater and a gold chain necklace, trying to look tough. They stopped behind the goldfish throw to turn and enjoy a deep, long kiss. Theresa looked away.

"There's gotta be some way to do this." Ryan wrinkled his nose at the fence, stretched out before them. "We did it last time, remember?"

"That was a long time ago, and the fair was at the mall then. C'mon." Theresa motioned for him to follow her. They scrambled along the fence, smelling the exhaust from the motors mingling with the scent of greasy carnival food. The ass-end of the fairground, Theresa thought to herself wryly.

She stopped suddenly in her tracks. "Oh, they _did_ bring the pirate ship ride this year!" She pointed at the ride carrying passengers high over the crowed. "Yeah! What do you think?"

Ryan eyed it critically. "Yeah. I don't think so."

"Not this year?"

"Try not _ever_. Are you kidding, have you _read_ the stories about all the people dying on those things? I don't plan on dying today."

"But it's so much fun – the adrenaline..." He tripped along, shaking his head at her. "The rush of energy... the look of utter terror on your face."

"Very funny."

"I'm just sayin' is all."

"I am not going on that thing. Forget it."

"For me?" She cocked her head at him hopefully.

"Uh, how about no?"

"Cause I do think it's funny to see you flip out."

"Theresa."

"Suit yourself." She shook her head as he stumbled on a rock. "Hey. Y'okay?"

"My knee." He straightened up, flexing it out. "I'm fine."

"You always recover in, like, two seconds," she said with disdain.

He grinned. "Cause I'm tough, that's why."

"Bullshit. I've seen you bawling like a baby." They rounded a corner. "Shit."

"What?"

"We're not sneaking in. Look. They're totally secure this year. Fuck!" She leaned against the fence and reached in her purse for her cigarettes.

Ryan halted and doubled back to join her. He entwined his fingers in the fence as she pulled out the pack and offered him one. He took it with his free hand and waited for her to juggle purse, pack, lighter and her own cigarette so that she could light his.

"Hey," he said, glancing over her shoulder. "It's Eddie and your brother! We could get their tickets and use 'em to get in-"

The relaxed smile on Theresa's face froze suddenly. "No..."

"No?" He took a drag on his cigarette and released the fence, stepping back to take a look at her.

"No – I'll just pay for you. Whatever. It's fine."

"Theresa, don't-"

"Win me something. We'll call it even."

He shrugged. "You sure?"

"Yeah. Totally."

"Okay then."

They made their way back around the perimeter of the carnival. She found herself shooting furtive glances for Eddie. Much as she didn't want Ryan to know they were involved, she especially felt Eddie wouldn't take well to her showing up with Ryan now...

It was too much for her to process. She couldn't handle this. Secrets, and lies, and-

"That'll be ten dollars, miss."

The fat, greasy ticket-taker didn't even look at her as she parted with the cash and received their two tickets in turn.

"Let's go find the guys," Ryan said as they moved to the ticket booth to purchase ticket books.

Theresa hesitated. She glanced around for excuses, feeling somehow frantic. "Wait! Let's get funnel cakes."

"Now?"

"Aren't you hungry?"

"I was, before you started making me think of heights. Hey." His eyes lit up. "Frogs!"

That worked, too. Ticket books in hand, they each took a spot before a water gun pistol.

"Winner every game, _every_ game! Someone here will win a prize, and it could be you, yes, it _could_ be you!"

Theresa handed her coupons over to the barker and felt for her gun. It was loose. An idea struck her and she shot Ryan a smirk.

"You are so dead," he threatened as the last of the pistols was claimed.

"Am I?" She cocked her rotating water pistol into position.

"Two... one! Go!"

She pulled back and aimed for the mouth of her frog. As the spray of water hit his mouth, her tadpole wiggled slowly upwards, inching towards the finish line.

The other players were yelling and cheering. "Go! Yeah! No! Damn frog! C'mon! Faster!"

But when she glanced to the side she saw that Ryan was silent, set with a slight underbite, eyes fixed on his target, aiming, steady. She hadn't seen that look since that night in the field, pummeling and attacking...

She did the only thing she could think of to do as his tadpole neared the finish line, and turned her pistol to soak Ryan squarely in the arm with her last burst of water as the game died.

"Ow! What the-"

"We have a winner!" The barker's eyes settled on Ryan. "Miss! Hey! You can't do that!"

Ryan clapped his wet arm as the winner, a ten-year-old kid on his other side, eagerly pointed to the inflatable guitar he wanted as his prize.

"Hey! I almost had that!"

"But you weren't having _fun._"

They drifted away as the annoyed barker studied Theresa's loose frog to see if it was fixable.

He wrinkled his nose, clearly at a loss for a comeback. "Hey, balloon darts? And no hitting me this time. I might actually win you something like I said I would." He paused. "And I promise. I'll have fun."

They moved towards the counter and he traded his tickets for a handful of darts. As he aimed the first one, Theresa thought she saw the back of Eddie's head, moving for the exit. She rose up slightly on her toes to check and there was Arturo, bobbling slightly lower, following Eddie out of the gate. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief as she settled back on her heels, clutching the counter as she leaned back.

"Damn!" Ryan had missed. She turned to watch. He took a step back, his face twisted in self-loathing as the attendant went to retrieve his missile from where it had hit empty corkboard.

The guy moved aside and Theresa held her breath, her fingers dancing lightly on the counter, as Ryan aimed again. He was careful this time, his nostrils flaring, and he sailed the dart straight into the corkboard a second time.

She released her breath.

"One more chance, my friend, you can still do it," the bored attendant droled.

Ryan shook his head at the ground, stomping his feet on the asphalt.

"Hey." She took his dry arm to calm him. He turned up to her abruptly. The touch had startled them both.

"Uh – sorry."

"No-"

She dropped her hand. "But you can do this."

He nodded with new resolve and turned back to the game. She reached up self-consciously to tuck her hair back, not sure what else to do with her hands-

_-Pop!-_

Ryan gripped the table and leaned back. He still didn't look happy, only grimly satisfied, she noticed.

"Any prize in the red bucket, Ace."

Ryan nudged Theresa. "Hey. Your pick. I said."

The cheap bucket. A rubber dinosaur... cardboard airplane... a large rubber ball...

The rings were kind of cool, and after a moment she pointed to a purple metallic one with silver diamonds patterned around. The bored attendant fished it out and passed it to her, avoiding eye contact. That didn't matter.

She tried to slip it on to her ring finger, but it balked at the second knuckle. She grimaced at her own fat fingers before sliding it on to her pinky and proudly holding it up for Ryan. "See?"

"Yeah, nice," he said, in that neutral I-have-no-idea voice.

"You lied, you know," she said, lowering her voice and leaning in.

"What? When?"

"That wasn't fun. You weren't having fun."

He rolled his eyes. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to eat a funnel cake."

Now he laughed. A little. "Fine."

"'Fine' my ass. You're _gonna_ have fun. If it kills us both."

"It just might."

She laughed now. "You!"

"'Me' nothing. Are we eating or what?"

She shook her head and followed Ryan through the crowd for the funnel cake cart. Maybe she was having fun. Just a little. Even if he wasn't.


	17. The Upset

They parked themselves on the edge of what was usually a sidewalk, knees pulled almost to their chests, balancing paper plates bearing fried dough smothered in powdered sugar. Theresa broke off a piece and coughed a little bit as she inhaled the sugar stirred into the air. She pressed the sweet warm dough in to her mouth, savoring the taste as she chewed slowly.

The question was burning her. She couldn't push it away any longer.

"So how's Lily?" she asked Ryan, and he nearly choked on his funnel cake, gagging a little.

"Haven't talked to her," he muttered, looking away before adding, "She won't return my calls."

"You called her?" Theresa asked before realizing what a dumb question that was. Of course he did. Lily lived all the way across town, not next door. Still...

Ryan shrugged, nibbling a bit too fast. "She's not in to me," he said, his voice even and matter-of-fact. "There's no point."

"Well, she's stupid," Theresa said. Not thinking. She wasn't thinking. She needed to think before she said these kinds of things.

"No she's not," Ryan said. "I'm no catch. What have I got to offer, anyway?"

"You're great in bed," Theresa suggested. She _had_ thought about that one and grinned to herself, enjoying his reaction as he gagged on his funnel cake again. "I'm just sayin'. She's missin' out."

"Oh, well, we did sleep together," he said casually, and this time it was Theresa who nearly choked on her funnel cake.

"You did? Uh, when?"

"When I took her home after the movie last week."

"Wow." She didn't know what to say. "Aren't you the stud."

He shrugged. "Yeah. Uh. She wasn't in to it. She's really not in to me, Theresa. It's not happening."

Her mouth hung open. Something was wrong with Lily. Something was seriously wrong with that girl... "Ryan – I'm sorry-"

"Yeah, I don't care." He was _trying_ to look convincing... "I tried."

What did friends do in these situations? Help each other out. Wasn't that right? "Do it again," she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.

Ryan wrinkled his nose at her, still shoveling dough in his mouth a little too fast. "That's what I said to you about Patrick Terrell."

She smiled off towards the carousel in the distance. "I remember."

"Did it work with him?"

"Oh, hell no. He's still queer as a two-headed turtle."

Ryan grinned and swallowed another mouthful of funnel cake. "Yeah. So. I heard people sayin' you're seein' someone?"

Her hand froze halfway to her mouth. "No. I mean yeah. I mean... Yeah, it's – nothing, really."

"Were you gonna mention it?"

She tried to act casual, discarding a singed piece of funnel cake on the ground. It bounced along the curb and landed in the gutter. She stared at it. "No, hey, it's not that big a deal."

"Anybody I know?"

He was genuinely curious. Which meant he genuinely didn't know. Which made her stomach clench even more. "No."

He hesitated. "It's not-"

"Who? Ryan." She felt cold. Did he-?

"Is it Mike?"

Theresa released the breath she'd been holding. "God, no!" She stared at him, shocked.

"Good. Cause I'd hurt him." The look on his face left no question as to his sincerity.

"I know. I promise it's not Mike."

"Okay. Cause I said you can go with whoever you want-"

"Long as they treat me right," Theresa said, smiling. "I remember." She stopped. "So can I ask you something now?"

"Guess so."

"Are you okay? I mean, at home?"

"Yeah." He was focusing on his funnel cake now, eating faster. "Why, uh, wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know, I – A.J. He kind of-"

"Bugs?" Ryan finished. "Yeah."

She sighed. "Do you need... I don't know. Anything?"

"C'mon." He stared at her. "I can take care of myself."

"I know, I-"

"I'm used to it. I mean, things suck, and today, but-" He shook his head. "Look, you really oughta stay out of it."

"What _happened_ today?"

He wasn't finished. He wasn't ready for her to interrupt. Not this time. "The last thing you need is to get involved with it. Heck, the last thing _I_ need is for you to get involved."

That did it. Now she had gone from mildly concerned to credibly worried. "Then what _do_ you need?"

"For you to understand that I'm fine!" he exploded. "I'm not some charity case! I don't need everybody lookin' after me."

Like he looked after everybody else.

He was rambling now, his voice higher, on the verge of breaking. "Just let me take care of myself. I don't want you to do it for me."

"So it's really okay." She wasn't sure.

"It is! I promise-" A sudden strange look crossed his face.

"Are you okay?"

"I just said-"

"No, I mean now."

He held his stomach. "I just feel-" He trailed off, looking greener.

"Oh, no – Ry..."

He tried to jump up and scramble for the nearest trash can but wasn't in time, and dropped to his knees by the curb as his stomach rejected a morning's worth of sugar in four strong retches.

Theresa knelt beside him, her fingers rubbing his back as he vomited, shaking with each ejection. She found herself automatically muttering something in Spanish that she didn't even understand any more, but she knew Eva had used those words with her long ago, back when they were still allowed to speak Spanish at home.

Ryan, on all fours on the sidewalk, bowed his head, gasping for breath. He spat onto the asphalt.

"C'mon, baby, you all right?" she asked gently.

He nodded and she removed her hand from his back, then stood back up, ready to grab him as he rose to his feet, swaying a bit. But he was fine. He shot a sideways glance at her hand, and she tucked it to her side.

"Sorry," he said. His voice shook only a little bit.

She moved away from the puke puddle and he followed. Somebody else could clean it up. They were paid for it. "C'mon. You need water."

He bowed his head, clearly embarrassed as he wiped at the corners of his mouth. She led him to the nearest food stand, but as she put her hand on his back to support him, she felt him shy away again. She didn't understand, but she took her hand down.

If Ryan didn't want her help, it made no sense to force him. She had learned long ago that there was no point once Ryan Atwood had really made up his mind.

* * *

Theresa waited for Ryan to dump his bike on his own porch before they both walked back to her house. He had regained some of his color, but had been quiet for the better part of an hour now.

Ryan leapt on to the stoop and beat her to the door. So he was the one to see them first.

"Hey. There you guys are."

She felt her blood bubbling as she chased after him to find Eddie and Arturo at the kitchen table looking over the sports section. Eddie's eyes met her, first asking, then accusing. She looked away.

"We saw you at the carnival," Ryan said, and Theresa wanted to smack him in to silence. Sometimes he could be so quiet; why not now for god's sakes? "You guys disappeared before we could find you."

"Yeah, we were bored," Eddie said, looking straight at her. She continued staring at the kitchen, where her mother was spooning ice cream in to three bowls.

"Ice cream, Ryan?" Eva asked, scoop in mid-air as she reached for a bowl in the cupboard.

He looked queasy again. "Thanks. Uh – no."

"Therese?"

"No, Ma." She bit her lip.

"What are you guys up to?" Ryan asked, sliding in beside Eddie, who scooted away from him an inch. Ryan didn't seem to notice. But Eva did, Eva always did... She shot a questioning look at Theresa.

"Not much," Arturo said, watching Eddie with an unflinching eye. "We might watch some NASCAR. Later on."

"Sounds good," Ryan said. He looked up at Theresa. "Aren't you gonna sit down?"

"Yeah, aren't you?" Eddie echoed.

"I – I don't-" She dodged for the kitchen. "Do we have any grape soda?"

She dove in to the fridge and rummaged aimlessly for several seconds, shoving aside milk and lettuce and juice until she felt the door pulling away from her. She looked up through a stray clump of hair to see her disapproving mother above her. She looked back down, ashamed.

"Theresa," Eva said in her calmest tone. "I want to show you something. In my room."

With a sigh, Theresa clung to her alibi, the last lonely can of grape soda, and trudged into her mother's room. Eva pulled the door shut behind her.

"What is this?" Eva asked, her voice quiet and still. "What are you doing?"

Theresa met her mother's eyes. "It's not – I'm-"

"Which boy are you seeing? Eddie? Or Ryan?"

"Eddie," Theresa whispered, terrified her voice would carry.

"And Ryan? He knows this?"

She looked down at last. "No."

"And why not?"

"Because – he – he'd be angry."

"So he _wants_ you to lie to him. He likes lying now, does he? This is not the Ryan I know."

"Mama!"

"Are you lying?"

"I'm not, I-" Theresa looked up helplessly. "I can't tell him! How do I tell him?"

"Three words, my dear," Eva said drily. "'I'm seeing Eddie'."

"You don't understand! His mama, and AJ-"

"I understand. I do. You think I was always so old?"

"Mama-"

"Don't 'Mama' me, Therese. This is my turn to talk." Eva waited, giving Theresa room for a comeback, but Theresa resigned herself to settle on to the bed, leaving her unopened soda on the nightstand. "Ah. Good."

Theresa leaned forward, resting her chin on her fists. At least she could look like she was interested.

"I used to be young and stupid too, you know." Theresa had to smile at that.

Eva stared at herself in the mirror. For a moment Theresa wondered what her mother had looked like when she was young and stupid. They didn't have photos. Eva had grown up too poor. She wouldn't have that for her children. They had pictures everywhere. Baby albums full of pictures. Theresa could trace her entire life in photographs. And yet she realized, as she perched on the bed, that she didn't have the slightest idea about her mother's life before the camera had entered it.

"You think you invented it, having more than one boy? I'll tell you, Mami, you did not. I did. I invented it." She drummed her hands on her dresser. "Twenty-two years old and I invented it. I had one, dependable, and a good man. Almost all the time." She took a deep breath.

"I'll tell you something. I know this. You can't choose you who love. You can't. It just happens, and it's like a train wreck, and there's nothing you can do to stop it, it controls you."

"You loved two men?" Theresa's head was spinning. Twenty-two? She tried to figure out the math in her head.

"No. I loved one. One loved me."

Theresa nodded, understanding this. She understood this all too well. "How did you choose?"

This startled Eva from her trance. "Choose?" she echoed.

"Yeah – which one did you choose? The safe one? Or the one you loved?" She held her breath, waiting for the right answer, for the guidance she needed.

Eva was quiet for a long moment. "You stupid girl," she said at last, her voice far from cruel. "You don't understand. If I had chosen? Everything would be different. Not like this."

Theresa stared at her, aghast. She said nothing.

"I said, 'How can I choose?' And then I said, 'If there are two, surely I will find one who has everything that I want.'" She shrugged. "And I never did."

"And the boys? ...Men?"

"Themselves? Are both long gone." Eva took to straightening the jewelry on her dresser. "Of course I have to think about them every day." She glanced over at Theresa. "Both of them."

Theresa twisted her hands together. "Mama... but..."

Eva could see the questions on her face. "You are not so stupid that you do not understand what I am saying."

"Then..." Theresa squinted. "So, the one you loved was... was _my_ father."

Eva shook her head. "That is not so important. What is important is you. You deserve better. Otherwise I would not tell you this. Because..." She stopped and sighed. "I was not supposed to tell you this."

Theresa bit her lip and nodded.

"And one more thing, Therese."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Arturo – please. He doesn't-" She broke off. Of course. He didn't need to know which one. Theresa didn't want to know, either. But as usual, she had pushed things to far, and now here she was.

"I won't tell him, Mom," she promised.

"Good," Eva said, satisfied.

"Thanks," Theresa said, standing.

"What are you going to do now?" a weary Eva asked.

Theresa brushed her lap off. "I'm going to make my choice."


	18. The Choice

_With apologies to Maud and Walter for the chapter title._

"Hey Eddie. C'mere a sec." Theresa leaned in the entrance to the kitchen, gripping the corner of the wall apprehensively.

Eddie looked up from his ice cream. "Huh?"

"That thing? I wanted to show you?"

He looked confused. She wanted to scream.

"You know." She gritted her teeth in a smile and inclined her head towards her room.

"Oh, right," Eddie said, getting it. "That thing." He picked up his bowl to carry it with him, past Arturo's questioning look and Ryan's blank one.

She had barely closed the door when his ice cream bowl was on her dresser and his arms were smothering her, his mouth at her face, closing her in between the door and Eddie. She kissed him back briefly. It was a strange sensation, being the center of Eddie's physical world. She let her hands quickly rub up and down his back before she stopped, pushing him away.

"I can't take this," Eddie said. He was breathing too fast.

She bit her lip. It was wrong. She'd kissed him back. She couldn't say it now. Could she?

"We need to talk."

"But I don't wanna talk." He took his ice cream bowl and plopped down on her bed. Like a pouting child. He shoveled a spoonful into his mouth.

"Uh huh. I can see that."

"What are we doing? Look, I love you." The words hit her as a roaring train. He had never said them. She knew he had never said them. Not to her. Not like that. Not ever. And here he was, so matter-of-fact. "And you love me, and c'mon, it's the easiest thing in the world."

"It's not." Why did she want to cry? "It's not easy. God. Damn. Eddie."

"Why can't we just say it? So he'll be pissed. So what? Better to tell him now. Get it over with."

"Eddie..."

"I mean, this is working. You and me. It's right. Enough of this bullshit."

She shook her head, fighting back the tears that were stinging her eyes. "I can't."

He blinked, as though he didn't hear her. "What?" The ice cream bowl fell to the side, propped up at an angle on the bedding.

"Can't do this. It's not working. Not right."

"No, baby," and he stood, concerned, moving as if to hold her in his arms. "No."

She shied away. "I'm not a baby. Sit down." He obeyed. "It's not – I'm not-"

"No," he said, resigned. "_I'm_ not."

"Eddie-!"

"What was it? Did I, you know, talk too much? No, I'm too dumb. Too tall. That's not it. Too fucking _nice_?" He slammed his hand on her nightstand, and both she and the music box jumped at once. "I get it, all right?"

"No," she said, and the tears were threatening her even closer. "No, you don't, it's not, it's not you, it's me-"

"Fuck that!" he hissed.

"You've been-" She wiped at her eyes. "Great. Perfect. Eddie, I don't deserve you."

He ran a hand through his hair, which now stood at wild angles. "Damn. You got that right."

She already was unsure of her choice, but now it was too late.

"Eddie, I-"

"Too late." He reached for the door. "Don't worry. Your – our 'secret'? Is safe." He was so scornful, but she could hear the pain. She wanted to stop him, but there was no time. He threw the door open, storming for the front.

She took a deep, ragged breath. It was done. She'd decided.

She glanced down at her hand, the purple prize ring around her pinky. She slid it off slowly and frowned. It had left a ring of purple dye on her finger where it had rested all day. It wouldn't go away, it wouldn't disappear. Even taking the ring off didn't make it go away. It was ironic, in its own way.

Theresa stared at the purple ring for a moment before crossing to her dresser and pulling open her top drawer. She shoved aside underwear and bras and socks, digging for the things she knew were in there. She pulled out a small lip gloss and an amethyst crystal and shoved the door closed.

She crossed to the nightstand and sat on the bed. She reached for the music box and opened it. The music had run out and the lovers were frozen in time.

Carefully, she set the three things out – lip gloss, crystal and ring - displayed like sacred treasures on the worn pink felt insides of the music box. For a moment she regarded the three objects with almost a holy reverence. They represented everything - everything. Every reason, every emotion. She blinked and shook her head. It was just a rock and a piece of trash and a tube of badly flavored wax. That was all it was. She was being ridiculous again. She did that a lot. It wasn't a good thing.

Ryan appeared in the hallway with a quizzical expression. "Everything okay?"

She slammed the music box shut. "Yeah, sure," she said, dismissive.

He watched as she set the music box back on her nightstand. "Okay. Cause Eddie looked-"

"Family stuff," she said. "Don't worry about it." She moved to block the nightstand so he wouldn't notice or ask her about it.

He nodded. He accepted this excuse much too easily. "We're gonna watch some NASCAR, if you want..."

She didn't want to. But maybe she deserved something unpleasant right now. "Okay," she sighed. "Who's playing?"

Ryan wrinkled his nose at her as she reached for Eddie's unfinished bowl of ice cream, and shook his head at her as she pulled her door shut, hurriedly wiping her eyes clean of the last of the tears. For now. She could finish them later.

* * *

It was hours later, as Theresa sat curled up in her bed, her face buried in the pillow, her arm wrapped protectively around her music box, that she heard a soft knock at the door. She didn't say anything, but after a moment, the door opened and she heard a voice. "And?" 

She moved her face to wipe more tears on her pillow. She lifted her head slightly at the sound of her mother's voice. "And what?"

"Which one did you choose?" Eva pressed gently.

"I – I didn't..."

"Oh, Therese." There was so much disappointment in her mother's voice, and it shamed her.

"It hurts, Mama. It hurts to feel this much, I want to be alone. Go away. Please?"

"No," came the quiet response. "No, nobody really wants that. Feeling is good. Even bad feeling. It connects us to each other. And sometimes yes. It does hurt. But it is worse not to feel at all."

"It can't feel worse than this."

"Yes, it can. Feeling nothing is worse than anything in the world. You don't know that because you feel too much, you feel too strongly. You don't know what it's like, not to feel anything."

"Mama?"

"Mmm?"

Theresa struggled to sit up, wiping at her face a little. "That doesn't make any sense."

"That's because you are young."

"You always say that."

"That's because it's true."

Theresa tried to smile and she couldn't. "It still hurts, Mama."

"Yes. I know."

"You always know everything, Mama."

"Yes. I do."

* * *

"That does it. I'm quitting."

Theresa slammed her register drawer shut and turned to Lily. "Um. Excuse me?"

"I can't take this anymore. It's hot and loud, and I'm so stressed out I've chewed my fingernails to pieces, _look_." Theresa looked. She had. "Gary keeps yelling and the customers are rude." Lily shook her head.

"Lily – no. I'll be all alone if you quit."

"Oh, come on. Like you care. You want me gone and you know it."

"I don't." Theresa paused. "Goddammit, it took me a month to get you in line. I'm not starting from scratch."

"You'll be fine." 

No. No, she could not do this. Not today. Not after the week Theresa was having. "Shit. No."

She was cut off by an explosion from the corner of the dining area. The napkin stand on the table had leapt a foot from the impact of Trey Atwood slamming the table down. Becca, across from him, looked terrified. Theresa felt the same.

"Then why the _fuck_ did I even bother?"

"You tell me!" Becca screamed back.

The other lunch customers looked petrified, and from the fury on Trey's face, Theresa didn't blame them one bit.

"This is over!"

"What? Trey, _what_ did we ever have that's fucking _over_?"

"Cunt!" he spat. Theresa winced. From the corner of her eye she saw Lily look away.

"Ass!"

Gary emerged from the back, wiping his hands on a towel and looking around with a worried expression. Theresa glanced back at the dining room only to see Becca burst in to tears.

"You can all go to hell!" Trey roared at the staring bystanders before storming off, leaving a hysterical Becca in his wake.

Theresa instinctively started for the dining room, then stopped. Lily had started, too, before stopping. They glanced at each other.

"You go," Theresa whispered, resigned. She made a quick gesture to motion Lily away. "I'll cover the registers."

Lily nodded a quick thanks and Theresa watched her move around to take a weeping Becca by the shoulders and escort her out of Pizza King.

"Where's she going?" Gary demanded.

"Gary, it's fine. I got it." She shook her head at him.

It wasn't her place to assuage Becca's drama any more. She was long past that. In fact, with Eddie out of the way, maybe she was done with drama. With feeling. For a little while.

That, she thought to herself as she watched Lily consoling Becca outside, just might be a nice change.


	19. The Crisis

When Theresa found out she was sitting at the patio table in her front yard with a glass of lemonade and the Harry Potter book.

Arturo had gone off to meet the guys, and Eva was out running errands in the neighborhood. It seemed like a calm, peaceful Tuesday with no work schedule. Theresa was barefoot out on the stone patio, enjoying the dry heat of summer and space and time to herself.

"Theresa..."

It was Ryan, breathless and sweaty. She could tell he was upset immediately. She could tell something was wrong...

"What? What is it?"

She opened the gate to find he had a dirty mark on his chin, and smudges on his arms and shirt. His hair was rumpled.

"What – were you fighting again? Why?"

"No," he panted. "Yes-"

She handed him her lemonade, concerned. "Here, drink this."

Gratefully, he slurped it down in one gulp and gasped, wiping his mouth off. "Eddie," he breathed as he took another gulp, this time of air.

"What about him?" she demanded. "Is he-? Did he-?" She felt cold.

"No," he said, surprised. "It wasn't him – fight. Some men – I don't know. We tried to stop them – and Eddie's dad-" He took a deep breath and tried to find more air. "Eddie's dad, he got shot, they're at the hospital."

"What?" This wasn't what she expected. She didn't know what she had expected, but it was something completely different. "Is he gonna be-?"

"I don't know!" Ryan exploded. "There was blood, a lot of it, and-"

She was already grabbing for her keys. "The LeBaron's out back, c'mon."

"I don't know if that's a good-"

"You drive!"

Ryan shrugged and caught the keys she hurled at him. They barged around the house and the car was off in under a minute.

Theresa chewed her nails as they raced for the hospital. She hadn't done that in years. She glanced at Ryan, silent and grim. Why had he come to get her? Because he needed her? Or because he sensed that Eddie did?

Now was not the time to ask. She looked away.

"They were friends of – his, you know." Ryan's voice was barely audible over the sound of the rumbling motor and the traffic.

She was confused. "Who? Eddie?"

"No." He was quiet for a moment, staring straight ahead. "Mike."

Theresa immediately turned to look out the window. She couldn't look at Ryan. She nibbled at her fingernails, trying to hide her expression behind her hands. She couldn't talk to him now.

The instant the car was parked she opened the door to jump out, then froze.

"There's glass."

"What?" Ryan looked over. "Theresa!"

"I'm sorry! I-"

"I cannot _believe_ you just forgot your shoes."

"Hello?" she asked, annoyed. "This is a crisis."

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Fine. Hold on." He climbed out and made his way around to her open door. He stooped to her, reaching his arms out. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hoisted her weight into his strong frame, her legs drooping over his right arm. He used his body weight to slam the car door shut.

As Ryan carried her through the parking lot she tried to ignore his pounding heart, tried to believe it had nothing to do with her. She couldn't help it. She knew he was wound up, knew why he was nervous. Still.

Ryan smelled like his house – cigarettes and sweat and stale milk and a faint odor of bourbon. It was a smell that made her think of dark bedrooms and late parties and nights alone with Ryan, exploring her body and his. He smelled like growing up and getting older. A smell of desire and anxiety and all of Theresa's teenage angst.

"Were you always this heavy?"

All ruined the second he opened his mouth. Of course.

"Were you always a five-foot-seven weakling? Atwood. Suck it up."

The guard stopped them at the door. "Hey, is she okay, man?"

"_I'm_ fine," Theresa said as she slipped from Ryan's quivering arms. Her feet hit the cold, sterile tile of the hospital floor.

"We're here to see somebody?" Ryan added.

"This is a hospital, miss. You gonna need some shoes."

She sighed. "I forgot them." She shot Ryan a dark look to keep him from laughing. It worked.

"You what?"

"We were in a hurry?"

"You can't just walk in a hospital barefoot..." He was at a loss for words, then sighed. "Don't move. I'll radio for some shoes for you."

"Size seven," she offered helpfully as he turned to his radio.

Ryan finally released a snort. "Only you," he said.

"What?" she shot back, indignant. He shook his head.

The guard produced a pair of hospital-issue booties a few minutes later and Theresa plodded after Ryan, winding through unfamiliar, sterile corridors. They found them looking like statues, immobilized. Arturo. Eddie's mom. Eddie's cousins. A heavy silence hanging over them all.

Arturo shook his head, and Theresa knew instantly. She felt her hands at her mouth.

She felt Ryan grab her arm in shock, and she shook him off. She had to find Eddie. Where was he?

"Oh, god..." Was that her voice? Eddie's mom was in tears, sobbing out her grief. "Where's...?"

Arturo gently took her arm and pulled her aside. "He's down the hall, if..."

She glanced at Ryan, who had shifted next to Eddie's cousin Antonio and was talking to him in a low tone about something. Ryan looked worried. What was left to be worried about?

She nodded and padded down the hall softly in her slippers. She found Eddie alone, by the nurse's station, and she knew right away that he liked it that way – alone. She also knew that it didn't exclude her. Not now.

She put her hand on his arm wordlessly. He glanced down at her. She had never seen his eyes so red, his face so pale.

"Sorry," she whispered, her voice barely there, and before she knew it he had thrown his arms around her, clinging to her. She was almost ashamed to compare it to Ryan's desperation, but there it was, their chests pressed close together, her head tucked on his shoulder as he bent to hers.

She held him in return, letting him shake in her arms. She stroked his head and let his tears pour on her shirt. She felt oddly detached from the whole scene. She wasn't here. These weren't her arms. This wasn't her hair. 

"It was my fault," he was whispering. "I shouldn't – I was pissed, and then – and then-"

"Shhh," she whispered softly back to him. "Baby. It's okay. Eddie."

"I killed him," he said. "I started it, I killed him-"

"You didn't," she said, surprised, holding him to her. "You didn't, you didn't know what would happen."

"But I did," he argued. "I knew they were pissed, and I knew what that guy would do, it's my fault-"

His voice was rising now. She pulled away and took his shoulders with a firm grip. "Eddie. C'mon."

"Fuck me! I'm such a shit, Theresa, I-" He tried to shake her off, reaching his arms up. She clung to him.

"Stop it," she said firmly. "Cut it out! There's nothing you can do about it now!"

Maybe it was the wrong thing to say. His face crumpled and for a moment he looked like Brandon Medena right before a temper tantrum. She saw the tears starting as his arms lowered.

"Hey." She pulled him back to her, and he bent down as she guided his head to her chest, resting atop her breasts. "Shhh. Baby. It's gonna be okay, it's gonna..."

As he shook on her chest, she realized with a start how oddly sensual this was, and how all of a sudden she wanted nothing more than to comfort him, and she knew exactly how to comfort a boy, after years of dealing with Ryan Atwood. She wasn't wearing a bra today, and she wondered if he could tell. His wet cheek grazed over where her nipple was, and she felt a shiver down her spine. A good shiver. A shiver that gave her ideas...

"Hey," she said again, reaching to stroke his hair. "There's nothing we can do here, all right? How about we get you home?"

He lifted his head just a little. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, we can go over to your place."

"But my mom-"

"She's got your cousins. They're all out there. And you don't want to see any of them right now, anyway. You don't want to see anybody right now."

He took a deep, shuddering breath. "No..."

"Then c'mon. Let's go." She looked at him hopefully, red-eyed and shaking, and raised her eyebrows at him. "Make you feel better."

"I..." Eddie hesitated.

"Eddie, I'm so sorry. For... for everything."

He knew exactly what she meant, and took another deep breath, this time more resolute. "Yeah. You're right. Let's get out of here."


	20. The Uncovering

Eddie fumbled for his keys. He looked nervous. He paused at his door, not breathing, not moving, almost as if he didn't want to disturb anything. "You sure you want to come in?"

She took a deep breath and nodded.

He looked down at her feet all of a sudden, blinking in surprise. "What the hell are those?" She had almost forgotten herself, with everything else to worry about.

"Hospital booties, I – I forgot my shoes."

After a moment, he gave a wry grin. "Only you."

"Fuck that shit-" she began.

"C'mon. You can borrow a pair of my mom's."

She nodded and followed him into the house. She stepped out of the hospital slippers, leaving them tucked in a corner by the door. There was a blinking message on the machine in the hallway.

She took his arm. "You don't have to-" He walked over to the machine anyway.

"-Eddie? It's Trey. I'm down at the station, they got the other guy, but now they're charging _me_ with assault, and it's bullshit. It's bullshit, man! And nobody's around, I dunno what the fuck is going on, but somebody better come get me out..." Theresa felt her toes curling in the hospital shoes. She knew that Trey had no idea what had happened, clearly, but she still couldn't help but blame him. Blaming Trey was too easy sometimes. Trey didn't think about what other people were going through. Trey didn't think about anybody but himself. Still, somebody had to help Trey.

Eddie took a deep breath. "I can't, I can't handle this-" He was close to hyperventilating.

"Let me. It's okay." She gazed up at him. "Know what? You need to take a shower. Go do that. I'll make the calls."

It wasn't hard. The hard part was listening to the shower running, knowing that Eddie was naked in there, baring every bit of his flesh, washing off the dirt and sweat and tears and blood, hearing the running water as it dripped away into the drain. The easy part was calling the hospital and talking to Ryan, who resolutely agreed to deal with the Trey situation before she hung up on him, and talking to Arturo, who had started panicking when she and Eddie vanished, and talking to Eddie's mom, who was barely coherent, to promise her that they'd keep an eye on the house for a little while if she needed to deal with things at the hospital. What was there to deal with, anyway? He was dead. There was nothing left to do. She called her house, where no one picked up, and left a message for her mother just in case. Eva would worry when she heard there was a fight and she couldn't find either of her children. Eva did worry like that.

She hung up the phone just as Eddie emerged from the shower in a clean t-shirt and shorts, barefoot. She didn't usually see him looking so comfortable. He never wore shorts in public. Which was for the best – his legs were scrawny and hairy.

"Hey," she said softly.

"Hey," he barely replied. He looked so fragile right now. So vulnerable. He didn't know what had happened, and she didn't either, but she knew that she had power. Eddie was hurting, and now she could help, alone in the house with no one around.

She stood and walked over to him, standing on her toes and closing her eyes. He took the bait and leaned in for a gentle kiss. His skin was still warm from the hot water of the shower. His damp hair dripped a little on her shoulder. She pulled him closer to her.

Theresa wound her leg between his scrawny hairy ones, and he broke off the kiss with a gasp. "What-?"

"Shhh," she whispered, pressing him towards his bedroom. "C'mon."

"What are you-?"

"Make you feel better," she said softly.

He walked backwards, letting her guide him in the direction of his bed. "But – are you – you're sure?"

She caught a whiff of something. A scent still on her. Ryan's bourbon and sweat and blood and milk. She swallowed and looked back at Eddie.

Maybe he couldn't smell it.

"Never surer," she whispered, her face just inches from his as she backed him into his room and closed the door behind them.

* * *

She tucked her head against his chest, letting him pull the blanket up over the two of them as if for modesty's sake. Of course he would want to cover her up. The sun was starting down, but the room was still flooded with light. Every image of the past few minutes was stamped on her brain, framed in time. Forever.

"Thank you," Eddie whispered. "For – for – thank you."

"I know." She tucked her hand near her face, against his chest, which was still beaded with sweat from his exertion a few minutes ago. All of his anger, his fear, his shock, his fury, his grief, all of it had been poured in to her. And she had absorbed it all and let it flow through, and now it felt as if they had both been cleansed of something larger than either of them. She inclined her head to glance up at his chin. "Feel better now?"

"Whoa," he said in a laugh. "Yeah?"

"Good."

His smile turned to a frown. "I don't know what to do. I feel so good right now, and everything that just happened – god, am I a bad person?"

"It won't last," she promised him quietly.

His breathing stopped for a moment. "No," he finally agreed.

He resumed breathing, and her head rose and fell with every breath he took. Eddie was with her. He was so much more with her than Ryan was their first time, so much more with her than Ryan had ever been. Becca had asked her to compare? Now, at last, she could. And she knew. There was no comparison. Even in his egotistical grief, Eddie had been worried about her.

"We should... get dressed. Go see if Trey's okay. Go find your mom."

"Yeah," he breathed. "Yeah. We should."

They lay there another minute, silent. She watched the room rise and fall as Eddie slowly inhaled and exhaled. She felt at peace. She wanted to stay here. There was no choice in here, there was only Eddie, warm and breathless.

"Eddie? Guys? Anybody here?"

She sat up in a flash. No. What was Ryan doing-? Dammit, the door had been left open, of course he would just barge in to Eddie's house, he always had, and there had never been any reason for him not to...

She glanced at Eddie, who was at a loss for words as he struggled to sit up with her. Neither one of them hurried to respond. Afterwards, she would think of the million things she could have done – scrambled for clothes, hidden under the bed – but in the moment, none of the brilliant ideas occurred to her. Instead, she felt trapped in the headlights, knowing what was about to happen, but unable to do anything to stop it.

Then the door to the bedroom opened, and she felt her heart fall out of her chest.

Ryan stared at them, unable to process. Blinking. Confused. What he saw made no sense in the world as he understood it.

"Ryan! Hey! Sorry, I-" Eddie moved aside, and Theresa pulled the blanket up over her breasts, scooting over him so that he would at least be next to her, not under her, naked, flushed, and covered in the sweat that made it so obvious what had just happened. For a moment, she wanted to thank him profusely for the blanket, but she realized that she needed far more than a blanket right now.

"What?" The word barely emerged from Ryan's lips.

"Ryan, it's not-" Theresa let her voice trail off. There was no denying it. There was no excuse. She glanced down at the blanket covering her lap.

Ryan wasn't much of a talker, and never had been, and after five years, Theresa was used to reading his face for the words he couldn't come up with. And now, as he stood in the doorway, silently staring at her in bed with Eddie, she could feel his emotions as though they were her own. The pain. The betrayal. The way his eyes crunched slightly at the corners, and his head tilted to the side just so, and his nose wrinkled at the smell of something he couldn't comprehend.

He turned around as if to go, then whirled back. "Trey's at the precinct, I thought maybe you guys would wanna go, cause they still want to talk to Eddie, and you hung up on me, but... maybe later." He was talking too quickly, too nervously, staring at some point off in the distance, far beyond the walls of Eddie's room.

"Ryan, wait," she said as he started out, and he stopped automatically.

He turned back around. "Wait for what?" he demanded.

"I didn't – I mean – "

"You _lied_ to me," he said, his voice low and shaking. "All this time. I thought we were friends. You _lied_ to me."

"It's not like that," she insisted.

"Then what is it?" he asked, his voice rising a little more, his head tilting to the side, challenging her.

She fought for the words, trying to tell him the truth now. If nothing else, she owed him the truth now. "I wanted to tell you – but I didn't want to hurt you-"

"Oh, that's great," he said, now ice cold. "That's real great."

"I tried-"

"No, you didn't," he snapped. Then he laughed, a short, frustrated laugh that made Theresa uneasy. "I should have figured. Sixteen years and I should have learned by now."

"Learned what?" she cried out from the bed.

He scoffed at her now. "Learned _better_."

"No." She felt tears brimming up in her eyes. "No, that's not it-"

"Look, man," Eddie said, interrupting all of a sudden. "Give us a sec to put some clothes on, all right? We can talk about this in a minute."

"It's not like he hasn't seen me naked before," Theresa whispered to Eddie.

"Hush," Eddie hissed at her. "You're not helping. Look, man. You're right. It was shitty. Both of us are shitheads. We shoulda said something, cause I mean, you're my friend. And you're her friend. And if we're all friends-"

Ryan was shaking his head, moving back and forth in the doorway. "God. No. I'm sorry. I don't have the right – no. What was I thinking?" He took a deep breath. "I overreacted. I'm sorry."

"Ryan-"

"God, Eddie, I'm sorry. I mean, the last thing you need right now is me, goin' off..." He was still looking away, but now he looked ashamed. And maybe still a little angry, too.

"You have every right, man," Eddie said seriously.

"No," Ryan said firmly. He looked up. "No, I don't. Look, you guys get dressed, or do – whatever. I'm just gonna go. To the precinct. Try to sort Trey's stuff..." He took a deep breath again. "I'll see you later. Eddie, I'm real sorry, man."

"No worries," Eddie said, slightly befuddled as Ryan backed out of the room, hurrying for the door.

Theresa let the blanket slip down a little as she turned to look at Eddie. All of a sudden she didn't want to be naked next to him anymore. The moment had ended long before, and now she was struck by her nudity and the fact that here was Eddie, and he had to deal with things because his father had just _died_... what was she _thinking_? She was a horrible, awful, terrible person.

They both heard the door close, and Theresa turned away. She wanted to pretend that it hadn't happened. That everything was still okay.

"You know something?" Eddie asked, and his voice sounded unusually tired.

"Mmmm?" Theresa asked, frowning over the edge of the bed at Eddie's floor.

"You smell like him."

She was silent, and pulled the covers back up over her chest. She felt as though she should be crying for some of this, any of this, but she wasn't feeling quite sad enough to. She only felt confused. She didn't know what had just happened.

"C'mon. Let's go. I'll..." He stopped. "I'll drop you off at home."


	21. The Memorial

Theresa rode with Arturo and her mother to the memorial service at the church. She was painfully aware that she was wearing the same black tank top she'd worn to the party at Trey's. It seemed like so long ago. But it was the only thing she had in black that was appropriate for the hot July weather, and with her dark gray skirt and black lace top over it, it was appropriate enough for a memorial service.

Arturo had been fairly quiet all week. Theresa had heard things, here and there. She'd heard him the night he brought Trey home from jail, screaming at him on the phone. She'd heard him yelling occasional curses in the direction of Trey's old house. And she'd heard Arturo taking some things out of his room one night, late after he thought that she and Eva were both asleep. He hadn't come back until almost morning, and had looked tired the next day. But her mother was always right, and there was no reason to ask too many questions.

She'd spent as much time as possible with Eddie. She sensed that in his grief he needed consoling, and she knew his mother wasn't there to do it. The woman was devastated, which annoyed Theresa a little bit because she knew that the man hadn't been all that nice to her when he was alive. In fact, from what she knew of Eddie's father through him and through the other guys, she wasn't entirely sure the tragedy was that great. But in the end, when it had counted, he had gotten mixed up in something that wasn't his fight.

It was her fight.

She tried to shake the feeling that it was her fault. That the whole thing was the result of her stupidity, her bad decisions. It turned out wasn't Mike being charged, after all, but a friend of his who wasn't even from Los Serranos. The story, as she'd eventually managed to wrangle out of Arturo, was that Mike's friend had a beef to pick with Trey, something "business" related, and Arturo, Eddie and Ryan happened to be there. Nobody would directly answer her questions about whether Mike and Ryan had confronted each other in the melee at all – she wasn't sure that anyone knew the answer to that question, even Ryan. But in the middle of the madness, a gun had come out, and Eddie's father, who had jumped in when he saw what was going on, happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It didn't matter. Even if it was some "business" that Trey had botched, the upshot of it all was that Theresa was dressed in black, sitting in the backseat, quietly looking back and forth between her silent mother and silent brother as they drove to remember Eddie's father.

The family was waiting outside in front of the church – the aunts and uncles, the cousins, Eddie's mother, someone she thought was a grandparent of his on one side. She leapt from the car and saw him light up gratefully as she approached across the parking lot. He kissed her lightly on her cheek, before pulling her closely to his side.

"Mama, this is Theresa. My girlfriend." She felt a certain strangeness at being called that here, something she had never been called before, in front of his family, in this setting. No kisses, no sexual affection. No, Theresa was here to comfort in front of the family, and that was a very different thing. Theresa the Catholic schoolgirl had to come out in full force now. She could pull that off. She could adjust.

She shot a parting glance at her mother and brother before walking into the church with Eddie, side by side, pressed against him. She stopped halfway up the aisle between the pews. He was clearly headed for the space reserved for family at the front.

"What?" he asked.

"I should go," she said nervously. "Uh, my mom-"

"Sit with me?" he asked, and he looked like such a hurt puppy dog that she had to smile tightly and nod, squeezing his hand again.

Sitting at the front through the service, it was hard to look and see if Ryan was there. She glimpsed Trey out of the corner of her eye, but he was alone. Alone with Becca. She glanced down at her lap, which Eddie's hand was parked solidly beside. One of his cousins was on her other side, one of the smaller ones, squirming and whining the whole time, and she felt like she was babysitting again.

When the long, torturous service was over, she stayed with Eddie for a couple of minutes, holding his arm and greeting his family somberly. As she turned to meet each of them in turn, she glanced over every shoulder, looking for something familiar.

She saw a flash of blond hair and let go of Eddie's arm. "Excuse me," she said. Eddie squeezed her hand and nodded before releasing her.

Theresa made her way through the crowd. "Mrs. Atwood?"

Dawn Atwood turned at the sound of her voice. "Oh. Theresa."

"Is Ryan here?"

Dawn's face turned sour. "You tell me."

"Isn't he coming?" she asked, confused.

"Like I would know?" she asked. "No. Ryan hasn't been home since the shooting. If you see him, tell him not to bother."

Theresa took a step back in shock. "That was three days ago."

Dawn softened a bit. "That long?"

Theresa shrank back another step. She didn't know what to say.

Dawn shook her head. "I didn't mean that, I-" She stopped and glanced across the room. Theresa saw A.J. Medena talking to one of Eddie's uncles. "Just tell him to come home, okay?" she whispered. She dipped her head down and hurried towards A.J. Theresa watched her go and then turned back to search for Eddie.

One of his aunts was all over him, fawning and cooing, so she felt safe darting across the sanctuary to where Trey was trying to make an exit without having to face his mother and her boyfriend. Not that she blamed him. "Trey! Hey Trey!" Becca was tagging along a couple of feet behind him.

He scowled at her as she approached. "Yeah. What the fuck do you want?" Becca stepped to the side, with an apologetic look at Theresa.

"Where's Ryan?"

Trey's face fell. "He ain't with you?"

"No. And your mom just told me he hasn't been home. So where the hell is he?"

"Eddie's dad just _died_ and you're worried about where Ryan is?" Becca asked in amazement, stepping back in.

"Yeah." She gave her a tough look, daring her to make something of it. She hoped she looked tough. "I can worry about more than one thing at a time."

"Oh yeah. Oh, yeah, you're real good at that." Trey folded his arms and Becca reached for his elbow.

Theresa scowled. "Cut the bullshit, asshole, have you _seen_ him?"

Trey's face tightened. "No," he said. "I haven't."

"Hasn't anybody seen him?" she insisted.

"Look," Trey said, leaning in. "Right now, he don't want to see you all that much." It was like ripping the scab off a freshly healed wound. Theresa couldn't help but wince. "Why you think he ain't at my place, bitch? He knows where you'll look for him."

"Seriously, where is he?" Becca asked. She looked back and forth between them, dropping Trey's arm. Her voice lowered. "You don't think he's on the streets?"

"Wherever he is, he can take care of himself," Trey snapped. "Better than dealing with this bullshit."

Theresa stared at him. "Nice, Trey. Real nice."

She turned on her heel and stormed off towards Eddie. She tapped him on the shoulder. "C'mere," she whispered in his ear. He nodded to his aunt, excusing himself.

She pulled him over to the end of the pews, away from the crowds, near the stiff, serious portrait of his father framed in carefully manicured flowers. "Okay. I know you don't want to hear this right now..."

He sighed heavily. "So what's with Ryan?"

She tried not to be surprised. There was no reason to be. She was truly that predictable. Eddie just knew her. Theresa took a deep breath. "He's... not here. And he hasn't been home for three days, and Trey hasn't seen him, either."

Eddie licked his lips, glancing over at his family.

"So, I - I know you don't want to deal with this. I'll go look for him, I just want you to know-"

"What?" he asked. He took a step away from her. "What the hell are you talking about? Of course we're going to look for him."

"What?" She wasn't sure she was hearing him right.

He gestured around at the room. "None of this is gonna change, okay? It's done. But Ryan, out there, on his own..." He shuddered and shook his head. "Scares the shit out of me."

Her eyes widened just a bit.

"That kid don't know how to look out for himself. Some kids do. Ryan? He'll pretend he does, but naw. He don't."

"You don't have to-"

"Course I do. And nobody else is doin' it, so... C'mon. Let me find my mom and tell her we're out, and then we're gonna go look for him. You and me." He stared her down into silence. "Together."

* * *

Theresa couldn't help but yawn, tucking her head up against the window of Eddie's truck.

"It's late," he sighed, peering through the late night haze illuminated by his headlights.

"No," she said. She struggled to sit up. "No, you know, we haven't searched the mall yet. Maybe he went there. Near there. Somewhere."

"Look, you don't have to do this," he said.

"Eddie! Of course I-"

"I mean," he said patiently, "I'm not tired. I been up late all week, I slept in today. I'm good." He glanced at her. "I'll drop you at home."

She rubbed at her nose. "I don't know."

"If I don't find him tonight, we're gonna need you to be awake tomorrow to do the lookin' then," he said.

She tilted her body towards Eddie and gently touched his shoulder. He glanced down at it before glancing back to the road. "_You_ don't have to do this."

"Cut it out, all right?" He swung the car onto her street. "Maybe he'll show up back at home. You never know. You should be there."

She sighed. "Ryan doesn't want to see me right now. Jesus, Eddie, he doesn't want to see either of us. What are we thinking?"

"We're thinkin' we're the ones who dicked him over," Eddie said seriously. "C'mon. He's not gonna come back for Arturo or Trey. We're the ones who gotta fix this."

"I wish I could fix all of it," she said, barely able to hear her own shaking voice in the quiet car. "I wish I could go back to the start and make none of it happen."

He looked at her abruptly. "None of it?" He stopped the car in front of her house.

"Some of it," she relented. She leaned over and let him kiss her, closing her eyes. He tasted like fast food and cigarette smoke.

She opened her eyes and pulled away. "Call me if you find him. Don't worry about waking my mom up, I'll take the phone in my room."

"Deal," he promised.

"Good night," she said, then paused. "Love you," she added, almost as an afterthought. He noticed.

"Love you, too," he said.

She hopped out of the car, biting her lip, and made her way to her door. Eddie waited until she was inside to drive off.

This week seemed like it would never end. One thing and then another. Growing up was so hard. Caring about people was so hard. She wished she never had to do it again.

Theresa made her way to her room without seeing her mother or brother, which was fine with her. She locked the door behind her. Her door did have a lock, she just never used it. She never had to. But right now, she didn't want to see or talk to anyone.

She took the black lace top off and draped it over the chair. The music box was still sitting on her nightstand, and she settled onto the bed, tucking her legs up underneath her, and opened it.

_-Sweet dreams to carry you close to me-_

The purple crystal and the pink lip gloss and the purple ring all sat there, staring back at her. The notes were winding down. She gently picked up the things she had put in there, one by one.

* * *

_"Oh my god! Look at all the geodes!"_

_"Rebecca! If I hear your voice on this side of the store one more time, your name will be on the board as soon as we get back to school!"_

_Becca only laughed at the teacher. "Dumb bitch," she whispered to Theresa who smiled, happy to be included in such rebelliousness._

_The gift shop of the geology museum was filled with fifth graders being monitored carefully by watchful chaperones and museum staff. Theresa only had a dollar-fifty to spend, and didn't think she could get more than an eraser with the geology museum logo, which didn't seem very exciting. She would rather buy a soda and a candy bar at the corner store than an eraser. She wasn't sure what to do._

_"Ow! Cut it!" Everyone in the room turned around. One of the boys Theresa didn't know well, who was in Mr. Bailey's class this year, was being attacked by a kid she thought she had seen somewhere, if not fifth grade. The less familiar kid, a pint-sized angry-looking thing, was dangerously close to some sharp rocks on display, too, and Theresa almost felt her heart stop._

_"No way!" the tiny kid yelled, knocking the other one over. His eyes were on fire, almost animal-like. Theresa and Becca leaned back against one of the rock displays while the chaperones swooped in to separate the boys, to the whispers of the rest of the fifth grade._

_"Oh wow," Becca said, giggling to Theresa._

_"That's my neighbor," Theresa said slowly as it dawned on her. "I know him. He just moved in last week."_

_"Oh, ew," Becca said. "Hey, look at the pretty rings! C'mere!"_

_Theresa followed, but she couldn't keep her eyes off the new kid as he sullenly was placed in the corner by Mr. Bailey, who was quietly lecturing him. She couldn't shake the feeling that he seemed oppressed somehow. Something unfair had just transpired in the gift shop at the geology museum with her new neighbor, and she had to know what it was._

_Mr. Bailey moved away from the new kid, who apparently also wasn't going to be fully disciplined until their return to school. The kid pulled his oversized sweatshirt around himself and tried to pretend like he was more interested in the display of geology books than in the hundred or so fifth graders staring at him and the seriously wrong first impression he had just made. _

_"Look at the cute rock animals!" Becca squealed._

_"Yeah – in a minute," Theresa said, distracted. She glanced around, looking for an excuse. "Um. I'll – be right back." She didn't have an excuse, really._

_She walked over to the books. They looked pretty boring. She glanced at the kid's face. He was bored, too._

_"What did he do to you?" she whispered._

_The kid looked up. For the first time, she could see that his eyebrows were furrowed in anger, and his face was red, but he was genuinely puzzled by her question at the same time._

_"He was tryin' to steal my dollar," the kid said._

_Theresa glanced back at Mr. Bailey, who had joined the chaperones checking the other kid over for injuries. "Seriously?"  
  
_

_"Yeah," he said. He shrugged. "He didn't, though." He looked a little calmer.  
  
_

_"Oh," she said. She didn't know what to say. She looked at the books. "So what are you gonna get with it? The dollar."  
  
_

_"Nothing," he said. "There's nothing good for a dollar, anyway."_

_He moved as if to get away from her, but she followed. They were standing in front of the rock samples now, and she dipped her hand in the box full of tumbled agate. "I love rocks," she said. "These are pretty."  
  
_

_He looked at her sideways. "I guess."_

_She pulled her hand out of the smooth, cold agate. "You do know I live next door, right?"  
  
_

_"You do?" he asked in surprise._

_"Yeah. I saw you out riding your bike on the street. In circles. The other day. My name is Theresa."_

_The kid shrugged again. He looked almost lost in his oversized sweatshirt. "I'm Ryan."  
  
_

_"Hi Ryan," she said. "I have a dollar-fifty. I can't get anything either." He was cute, she noticed. She glanced at the rocks on the shelf. "We could get a crystal for two-fifty, you know. The crystals are cool."  
  
_

_"But then who gets to take it home?" he asked, sincerely concerned._

_"We can share it," she said. "Kind of like joint custody. You know. Like divorced parents."_

_Ryan nodded, considering this. "Okay. You take it home first. You have more money."  
  
_

_She giggled at that as she picked the rock up off the shelf and the boy in the oversized sweatshirt smiled shyly at her. He was so much nicer than he'd looked a few minutes ago. And so much nicer than Rebecca. And he was cute. Like the boys in the pin-ups in her bedroom. She liked him already._

_"You woulda won that fight with Jamie, right?" Theresa asked. "If they hadn't stopped you."  
  
_

_"I'm good at fighting," he said, puffing his chest out. "My brother taught me."_

_"Jamie's like twice your size."  
  
_

_"Doesn't matter," Ryan said. Then he looked doubtful._

_"Well," Theresa said, fingering the stone in her hand, "this rock is sharp. If he tries to kick your ass again? Just stab his ass right back."_

_For the first time, Ryan looked relaxed as he studied the crystal in her hand. "That's a good idea," he mused. So he was funny, too. More and more she was feeling something strange about this kid. No, not strange. Good strange. Interesting. Appealing._

_"C'mon," she said. "Let's go buy it." She started for the cash register, then stopped. Was he still behind her? It felt like he wasn't. She turned around. He was._

_When he saw her looking for him, he finally started to follow, and together, they walked to the cashier to buy the crystal with the two-fifty that they had pooled._

* * *

She closed the rock in her fist. 

_-I wish they may, and I wish they might-_

After all these years, the cool crystal still fit perfectly. Ryan had never taken it with him. It had never left her house. He didn't even remember it. He had never asked. Ever. Her thumb rubbed the flat edge of the crystal. It still belonged to him. He had to come back for it.

She set it beside the purple ring and picked up the lip gloss. She unscrewed the cap and held it to her nose to sniff.

* * *

_The night air was humid and sticky, and Theresa pulled at her shirt to fan herself, to keep the sweat from starting. She didn't want to sweat, not next to Ryan, not now._

_"What's that smell?"_

_"What does it smell like?"  
  
_

_"Candy? Bubble gum?"  
  
_

_She relaxed. "Raspberry?"  
  
_

_"Maybe. Yeah."  
  
_

_Theresa giggled and flipped a stray braid over her shoulder. "It's my lip gloss."  
  
_

_He stared at her. "You're wearing lip gloss?"  
  
_

_Now she was offended. She dropped her jaw in mock frustration. "We're at a dance, Ryan."  
  
_

_"Yeah, but your mom let you wear lip gloss?"  
  
_

_"No. Becca gave it to me." She paused. "She gave me a whole thing of it. Said I could keep it, actually."  
  
_

_Ryan laughed. "Well, it smells good."  
  
_

_She felt an odd feeling on the back of her neck. He was looking at her lip gloss now. Looking at it a lot. "Thanks," she said._

_He looked up at her eyes, and in a moment, it was like all the electricity in the alley behind the school gym changed, and they weren't seventh graders playing at school at night anymore, but adults. Grown-ups. Thinking grown-up things, feeling grown-up things._

_"Can I...?" He couldn't even say it._

_She didn't want him to say it. She leaned forward, closing her eyes, to let him taste it. And he did. It was a quick kiss, her first kiss, sharp and to the point. He sat back up and she opened her eyes. _

_"It tastes good," he decided. _

_She looked away for a moment, not sure what to say. Then she turned back to him._

_"Want to taste it again?"  
  
_

_He hesitated for a moment, then leaned back on his hands. "I like raspberries," he admitted._

_"Okay," was all she could think of to say, and it was a stupid thing to say, but it worked, because now he was tasting her raspberries again, and now he was touching her in a way he had never touched her before, and it would always seem to her years later that in that moment she stopped being a child. She would always believe, though she could never bring herself to admit it to anyone, that she started to grow up the second Ryan Atwood started to kiss her._

_He needed her to kiss him, needed her to like him. It was more than the flavor of raspberries. He didn't just want the sweet taste. He needed it. He needed something sweet, something fun, something to distract him, and she wanted to be that thing. She didn't know if he had ever kissed a girl like this before, but she liked it, and she wanted more._

_She never wore the raspberry lip gloss again after that night. She could never bring herself to, because raspberry lip gloss was for that night, and that dance, and that kiss only._

_She bought strawberry instead._

_And Ryan liked that, too._

* * *

Ryan was missing.

Ryan hadn't come back to her.

Ryan didn't think she was here to come back to.

-_As long as my heart doesn't know who you are-_

For the first time in three and a half years, Theresa twisted the lip gloss open and rubbed her finger in the sweet-smelling grease. She brushed it onto her lips and tasted it. It hadn't quite spoiled, though it did taste funny – maybe her taste buds were maturing. She smacked her lips together and wiped her hand off on her gray skirt.

She studied her reflection. She could see a gray hair on her hairline, but couldn't bring herself to pluck it. It wasn't going anywhere. It would only come back.

It had been a long time since her first kiss.

And then she saw him in the mirror, the faintest outline of a person in the window, reflecting at her from behind. He looked like a ghost, appearing where he shouldn't. She whirled around before he could disappear.

"Ryan!"

He looked like he was going to run, but she crossed the room as quickly as she could and threw open the window.

He froze in the light from her room, outside in the night air, trapped like a deer in the headlights. She leaned forward on the windowsill.

"Hold it." He listened. He stopped.

She wasn't going to let him get away again.

Not this time.


	22. The Breaking Point

(_Author's note: This story contains 24 chapters. For the record.)_

"Hey."

It was something like the understatement of the year. This was Ryan. Typical Ryan. Three days without seeing anyone, as far as she could tell, and all he did was greet her like they had just bumped into each other in the supermarket. He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking like he was trying desperately to look casual, like he'd only been passing by. Passing by the side of her house that _didn't _face his house. Yeah, okay.

"Where _were_ you?"

He took another step back, approaching the shadows. He was only steps away from disappearing completely. She leaned forward out of instinct. "Around." He looked like he wanted to run away. His hair was matted and his jacket was dirty.

"Get in here, you little shit."

"I, uh, was gonna go around front," he said feebly, shrugging his shoulders, looking helplessly lost inside his oversized jacket.

She stopped. "Oh."

Theresa wound her way through the quiet house to the front door. Her mother and Arturo were asleep. She walked quietly, her footsteps sounding so loud in the silence. In the darkness, in the night, the house she'd grown up in seemed so foreign to her. She had the strange feeling of being in a strange, exotic land.

There was a faint odor to him as soon as she opened the door. She wrinkled her nose. It wasn't bourbon or stale milk. "Where have you been sleeping?" she hissed, as he slipped into the house.

"Haven't."

She swallowed just a little, but bit her lip into silence.

Once they were in her room and the door was closed, she turned and leaned against the door, more to keep Ryan inside than anything else. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I don't know, I... I didn't want to go home, but I _have_ to... I can't do this, Theresa," he whispered, his eyes wide. "I can't sleep out there, can't do it-" He trailed off. He was slipping away.

"The memorial was today," she said, trying to fill the silence. "And your mom? Told me to tell you to come home."

"Did she." He sniffed the air a little and rubbed at his nose. "Well."

"It's right next door," Theresa said, hearing the edge to her own voice. "Not that far."

"Yeah." He shuffled his feet now, fingering his last cigarette. "Guess..."

"Why didn't you come home, Ryan?" Silence. "Is it because you're mad at me?"

He closed his eyes, starting to shake his head. "Theresa..."

She cut off his search for words. "Look, Eddie is my boyfriend now. But you and I, we've always been, we'll always be-" She stood by the door, stock still, not knowing quite what to do or say. Not knowing how to finish the sentence.

He couldn't look at her. He couldn't look away from the cigarette he was fidgeting in his hands. "Forget it."

"No, say it."

"Look..." He shook his head and clenched the cigarette in a fist. "It's not that, Theresa. It's..." He stopped. He couldn't finish a sentence. Ryan had never been very verbal, and right now, she just wanted him to say something. Open his mouth and say a goddamn word, something, anything to tell her what he was thinking, because right now, with all this fumbling and starting and stopping, she honestly didn't know. "It's not you!" he burst out at last.

The words ripped something deep within her. "Yeah. I thought so."

"Thought what?" he asked, guarded.

"All that stuff?" She swallowed. "That you said at Eddie's house?"

He nodded, a bit too quickly. "Yeah, I remember."

Theresa straightened up and folded her arms. "I thought you didn't mean it."

He blinked at her, suspicious. "Yeah, like which part?"

Her voice was stronger now. She was sure now. "The part where you were okay with it. Admit it, c'mon. You're pissed at me."

"No," he insisted, looking over at the music box still open on her bed. She couldn't tell if he even remembered it. "You weren't tryin' to piss me off, I – I get that."

She clenched her fists, feeling years of emotion boiling over, heating her from the inside. Years of Theresa and Ryan all coming to a head right here, in her bedroom, and she was too tired from Eddie and the funeral and Becca and Lily and Ryan and everything else to edit herself. "Maybe I was! Didya ever think of that?"

"What?" His voice was barely audible again. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Jesus!" She threw up her hands and turned around, catching herself in the familiar joke even as she did. "I mean Ryan. I mean – no. You're not Jesus. You never were. You don't know who you are, you don't know yourself, I don't know you anymore. Who _are_ you, Ryan?"

He shook his head at her. "Who do you want me to be exactly?"

"You, Ryan!" she shouted. "Goddammit Ryan, my fucking best friend, I fucking love you, and you know it, and you're standing there like a slack-jawed yokel, just doing what everybody wants you to do, being what they want you to be. God, say something! Anything!" She picked up a pillow and threw it at him. It glanced off him as he stood there stock still, processing what she was saying. The pillow tumbled to the floor and Ryan stayed there, searching for words. The cigarette fell from his hands as well, forgotten.

"C'mon, don't do this." He had found his words at last.

"Too fucking late, Ryan. We've been doing this. Way too long."

He finally found the words. "Theresa – I mean it's not – like-"

She heard what he wasn't saying, the silences in between the words, and tried to remain composed. It wasn't easy, with the shattered feeling in her chest.

"You sure have a funny way of loving somebody, you know," he finally said. "Lying and sneaking around?"

"I-" Now she was the one with no words.

"What am I s'posed to do? Naw, you – you're just like everyone else." His face was hardening now, scaring her. "Maybe I was right before, maybe I can't trust you now."

"Ryan-"

He looked like A. J. Medena. He looked exactly like A. J. Medena right now. She felt cold as he spoke. "Yeah. Yeah. You know, maybe you and Eddie deserve each other."

"Ryan, don't do this," she begged. "Please don't, don't do this..."

"Goddammit!" he shouted, and now he was loud enough, surely, that Arturo and Eva would be up any moment. "I thought I knew you!"

"So I guess I was right then." She felt all the suppressed emotion, all the anger she'd been holding in ever since their fight in the field behind Trey's apartment, all the resentment from years of casual sex and empty flirtation. All the time she'd wasted on Ryan Atwood. "Maybe we never really knew anything, I never knew who you were."

"I'm whoever you want me to be," he said, and there was a sad, almost quiet look to him just for a moment. "You know, maybe we just never trusted each other either."_  
  
_

"I guess we didn't!" she screamed back at him. His face was growing red now, and she was sure that hers was, too. "I guess it was all for nothing!"

He kicked the pillow away, searching for an outlet for his anger. "Go lie to Eddie too, I'm sure he won't care!"

The kick, the violence, the movement startled her back to reality. Reality was Ryan in front of her, and the chasm growing deeper and wider, and in moments, in seconds they would never be able to cross it again. "God. Oh god. Ryan."

But Ryan was far from finished. "As long as he's getting laid, what does he care?"

"Stop it. Just – just stop it. Now."

It was too late to stop. His face crumpled again, and he turned around abruptly, moving to face the wall, bracing himself against it with an arm over his head, leaning in to the wall, as though he would fall down without it.

There was silence in the room for a long time. Too long. Theresa felt the anger rising and cresting within her as Ryan took in the silence, his shoulders rising and falling.

"The hell are you thinking over there?" she finally asked.

"You know what the fuck I'm thinking," was his quiet response, and it caught her off guard completely. The too-familiar phrase was so incredibly out of place. YKWTFIT.

Once, they'd said it so much that they had to start abbreviating it. Once, they'd always known what they were thinking. Passing coded notes in physical science class, so incredibly indecipherable to anyone else. Now, she had to admit to herself that she truly didn't. She didn't know what he was thinking, and she didn't know what she was thinking.

But he turned around, and the look on his face wiped the tiniest smile from hers. "If you had to choose? Me or Eddie?"

She blinked. She hadn't even realized- "Right now? One or the other?"

"C'mon," he said impatiently. "You have to know."

"Ryan, cut it out. Don't make me-"

"One or the other," he said loudly, talking over her. "It's not that hard a question. I know you, I know what the fuck you're thinking, I always do, I know you've been thinking it over for months, and I know you have to know." She couldn't remember ever hearing him say a longer sentence.

"Eddie and I haven't been together for months," she said automatically.

Wrong answer. "Course not," he said stiffly. "So?"

She shook her head. "You're – you're right," she said at last. "I can't think about anything else."

"Who?" he asked. His face was set like steel, set so much that his jaw was practically shaking. He was still leaning against the wall for support, just a little bit. Leaning. He was the animal and she wanted him for it.

"Who do you think?" she asked finally. She could hear her own voice trembling. "But I don't have a choice, do I?"

In one sudden movement, his arm swept the music box up from the bed. Before she could stop him, before she could restrain him, he had launched it with extreme force against the wall. A cacophony of notes rang out as the box hit the wall, disintegrating into pieces, the lovers flying through the air, the lip gloss and the crystal and the ring falling to the floor, the sides of the box tumbling to the ground in even more pieces.

There was a stunned silence in the room for a moment.

The door to her room flew open. It was Arturo, wide-eyed and alarmed, barefoot and in his pajamas. "The hell?" he hissed. "Ryan? What are you doin'?"

Ryan stared back at him, silent, with a defiant expression.

Arturo rose to his full height and folded his arms. "Get the _hell_ out of my house, man."

Ryan stormed past him without a word. Arturo, dumbfounded, could only turn and watch him go.

Theresa stared in shock at the broken pieces of her music box on the floor. A dozen pieces destroyed beyond repair, the strange innards of the mechanical song strewn across the room, a mark on the wall from the impact.

She felt that she should do something now. Dissolve into tears. Yell after Ryan. Scream at Arturo. Laugh. Cry. She felt that she could feel something, but she felt nothing at all. Nothing except for a deep, pervading numbness, a lack of feeling altogether. A hollowness down in her core. Something wasn't there that used to be there.

"I take it he found out, huh?" Arturo asked.

Theresa shrugged. She couldn't take her eyes off the carnage on the floor.

He turned around. "I don't think he woke Mama up."

"Good," she said definitively. She studied the mess in front of her. "Hey. Maybe you can get the broom?"

"Theresa..." Arturo stared at her.

"Let's clean this up. Mama will never know."

Arturo nodded silently and turned to search for the broom, leaving her alone in her room, with the broken music box scattered on the floor in front of her.

She picked the lovers up from where they'd landed, and if she'd been ready to feel anything at all, she might have been amused that they had broken apart, a leg here, a head there, cracked almost exactly straight up the middle, torsos and hearts separated. She carefully dumped the pieces into her trashcan. She never wanted to see them again.

Somehow, it felt like her heart had reached the end, and if anything, she was just relieved to have it over with. She wasn't going to hurt again. She wasn't going to feel again. Not for Ryan Atwood.

Now, it could just be over.

* * *

Once Ryan was out of Theresa's life, she found that time started to pass very quickly.

Theresa stopped looking for Ryan everywhere. Sometimes she saw him, usually with Trey, since neither Arturo nor Eddie was speaking to him. Eddie had heard her version of the story, and probably Arturo's as well, and wasn't interested in Ryan's version. But she didn't talk to Ryan, and he didn't look at her, and it was as if he was a complete stranger. And after all, maybe he always had been.

She took a casserole over to Eddie two days after her fight with Ryan. Eva had made a rice and bean dish, since Eddie's mom was reportedly still grieving and lord only knew Eddie couldn't cook worth a damn.

"Arturo told me what happened," Eddie said as soon as he opened the door.

She forced herself to meet his eyes.

"Look, it's over, okay, baby?" she asked. "Really this time."

He waited until she offered a smile, and then he also relaxed, guiding her inside the house, his hand placed comfortably on the small of her back.

She greeted his mother and the aunt who was visiting, and they excused themselves to the yard and left them alone in the kitchen. He finally spoke up again as she was heating the casserole on the stove. "I know," he said softly, surprising her. She looked at him curiously.

"I know, I'll never be Ryan."

She reached for a potholder. "Yeah, well. Maybe I don't want a Ryan right now."

She turned around and met his eyes, and she knew that he understood.

But she realized as he kissed her gently that she didn't know if she did.

Lily hooked up with Jamie Vega a week later, at a party at Becca's house. Theresa wasn't invited, but Becca called her the next day and told her all the gruesome details, completely ignoring the fact that Theresa hadn't been invited. She spent half an hour going on about how it was all anybody would be talking about when school started, although Theresa heard the edge in her voice. They would be talking about other things, too, not that Becca would dare say it to her face. Becca still seemed willing to speak to her, even though Trey wasn't, mostly because they were broken up again. Or something. Theresa really couldn't keep track anymore. Theresa really didn't care anymore.

Theresa was finding more and more that she didn't care about much of anything now.

There was yet another brawl right after that, and Arturo was involved again, though luckily no one was hurt this time. Some kids from another school attacked Patrick Terrell, and somehow Turo got in on it, and came home with a bloodied nose. Eva was furious at first, because after Eddie's dad, every fight was suddenly scarier and more dangerous than ever. That changed once she talked to Arturo, though, and Theresa felt a certain dull urge to find out why. All that she could tell from Arturo's vague description and the various rumors floating around was that it might have been a gay-bashing of some sort. If Theresa could have felt anything, she might have felt proud that Arturo got involved, and broke it up, and then brought Patrick over to their house and gave him some clothes, and then hurried to find a girl to hook up with later that day to assert his own heterosexuality. It was something that should have stirred some emotion, some minor pride in her brother, or foolish scorn at his latent embarrassment.

But there was nothing.

No feeling. No stirring. No emotion.

Trey Atwood lost his house shortly thereafter. He couldn't pay rent, and she heard that he was evicted, and all of a sudden he started showing up around the neighborhood again, coming and going from the Atwood house at strange hours, looking sullen or belligerent. She didn't look when she saw him. She didn't want to see him. Not only that, half the time he was with Ryan, and she didn't want to look at Ryan at all right now. And so she looked away.

She still kept expecting to see him in her room at night, every time she looked at her window. Every time she saw shadows moving in the rain. But now, it was only the wind. Ryan didn't come to her house anymore. Ryan wasn't a part of her life anymore.

Juana Medena lost her job next, after she missed work too many times. Angelita had been sick for most of the summer. Eva told Theresa that she was taking the kids to Seattle to live with relatives. Theresa nodded numbly as she heard. She would never have to babysit for the little brats ever again, and it should have made her happy, but she couldn't be happy right now. She couldn't be sad. She couldn't be excited, or disappointed. She still couldn't feel anything right now.

Eva found a house. It wasn't Trey's, although the two events followed quickly upon each other. It was half a mile away, and had a beautiful backyard, and a garage apartment for Arturo, and a private bathroom for Theresa. It was small, but they could afford it if they scraped some money together and Theresa kept working for the school year, and if all went well, they would be able to move by Christmas. The change might have made Theresa nervous, if she was feeling anything, but by now, enough had changed. Another little change couldn't bother her that much. It didn't matter if she couldn't look over at the Atwood house from her yard anymore.

She started thinking about what to pack, but nothing really mattered anymore. If her house burned down, there wasn't anything she would miss. Material things didn't matter. Clothes and pictures and scrapbooks didn't matter. Music boxes and dumb rocks and lip gloss and cheap rings didn't matter. They were things. They weren't worth getting upset about. Just like people. People weren't worth getting upset about. Nothing was worth getting upset about.

Getting upset hurt too much. And nothing was worth the pain.

Becca snapped at her one day. They were in the parking lot at the shopping center with a crowd. Becca was only there because she was looking to flirt with some of the boys, and Theresa was only there to keep an eye on her. But Becca was the only one who noticed Theresa off to the side, staring across the highway at the high school, and she could finally keep her big mouth shut no longer.

She slid off the hood of the truck where she'd been perched with Crystal, and approached Theresa's side, startling her when she spoke.

"It's not like he _died_, Theresa, he still lives next _door_."

She was startled that Becca knew exactly what was on her mind, but then, it was Becca. And she knew Becca better than anyone, even if she tried to pretend that she didn't. Maybe Becca was her best friend after all, all along.

Still, she turned to Becca, scowled, and stormed across the parking lot for the LeBaron. She didn't want to deal with this.

Eddie was there. All this time, Eddie was still there, calling her every night now, coming over to her house, taking her out for drives, picking her up to take her over to his house. There was sex, and he was enjoying it, and she thought maybe she was, too, although she wasn't sure. Because she still wasn't feeling much of anything, but it didn't seem like Eddie was picking up on that. Or if he was, he was doing a good job of hiding it in their nights alone in his house, muffled under the covers, trying to make sure his mother didn't hear, and planning for the apartment he was going to rent. Eddie had big plans, and now he was sharing them with her, in these late nights buried under his thick comforter, cuddling and fucking and whispering into the intimate early morning hours.

Sometimes she still found herself staring at the Atwood house, only when she was sure she wouldn't see Ryan. Only when she knew he was out, working at a construction site, or out with Trey, because those were about the only two things he did anymore, it seemed. She couldn't help but look at the house. It didn't make her feel anything, because she wasn't feeling anything, but she just had to look at it anyway. Maybe it was habit. Theresa wasn't sure.

Three weeks passed. One thing followed upon another, and Theresa heard and saw it all, and she felt nothing. She absorbed it all, wondering if sometime later she would process it all, collect her thoughts and finally figure out what was happening to her life, and what she could do about it.

It was only a matter of time. She knew it. She was going through a phase. She wasn't going to feel like this forever. She would feel something again. She would return to normal, and collect everything together, and figure it out, and then the world would make sense and she would be a regular girl again, and everything would go on like normal.

She consoled herself in this thought. Theresa could be rational, and she knew that one day, everything would return to the way it used to be. She wasn't a child anymore, and she saw the world differently, but even when things changed, they still stayed the same. She knew that her world would right itself and everything would be okay, once she just gave things enough time. She just had to wait for the pendulum to swing her way again, the way that it always did.

And then she woke up one day and Ryan was gone.


	23. Not Enough

She should have known something was wrong on that Wednesday afternoon when she heard Arturo talking on the hall phone in a low voice. Eddie had called earlier and would be there soon to pick her up, and she was moving for the front yard, past the hallway mirror, when she heard him.

"Look, man," he was saying. "Theresa, she's still upset, and I don't blame her. I just don't think it would be a good idea right now." There was a pause. "But maybe tomorrow we could talk somewhere else, or I could come by- hello? Hello?" She heard him slam the receiver down and mutter to himself. "Damn bastard hangin' up on me. Deserves whatever the fuck he gets."

She was going to ask him what that was about when she heard someone rapping at the door, bypassing the doorbell as usual, and she moved to open it. She smiled, because that was what she was supposed to do, and kissed Eddie briefly, because that was what she was supposed to do. A quick peck, a greeting, because it wasn't proper to even consider jumping him in public like this. She and Eddie didn't have that kind of relationship, he was too private.

A tinny, electronic chirping rang out. "Oh, shit, sorry, my phone," Eddie said apologetically. He glanced at it. He was still trying to figure out how the phone worked. He'd only acquired it a few weeks before, when he'd gotten the job and suddenly had to be on call all the time. It made him feel special, having a cell phone. Most of the guys around here who had cell phones were dealers. A.J. had a cell phone.

"Who?" she pressed.

"Dunno," he said. "The number, I don't recognize - that's weird. Hold on. Hello?" He flipped the phone open and hopped down off the front step, walking a few steps down the sidewalk. "Oh," he said, his voice sounding resolute as he processed it.

She paused in the doorway, waiting.

"After everything we just went through, shit, man. Pull that shit on Arturo, not me." Eddie's eyes flicked to her, then flicked away. "Yeah, ask him man, I'm the last person you should be asking for favors right now."

She heard him curse at the phone and moved out onto the front step. "Who's that?"

He clicked the phone shut. "Don't worry about it."

"Is something wrong?" First Arturo, and now him... something strange was going on.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Ryan and Trey were being dumbasses again. What else is new? Don't worry about it, really. I'm not."

She smiled, knowing even as she did that it wasn't reaching her eyes. "Then I'm not either."

"Good," he said definitively.

She reached for his hand to hold it in hers, because that was what she was supposed to do. Ryan had never held her hand, so it was just as well that he wasn't here now, and that he was off being a dumbass, and that Arturo and Eddie were just protecting her, they always would protect her, and that was all.

That was what Theresa thought on Wednesday afternoon.

On Thursday morning even Theresa could hear the yelling from over at the Atwood house.

The noise woke her up early, winding its way into a dream she couldn't remember. She tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but she couldn't. Groggy, she pulled herself from her bed, reached for a robe, and inserted her feet into her slippers to pad out to the front yard and her driveway. She squinted from the driveway over towards Ryan's house, confused. She had heard yelling over there before, but usually could tune it out, and it usually didn't last very long. She would put it in the back of her mind and pretend everything was okay, and then it would be. But something was different.

She blinked and shook her head. Even if Ryan was over there, he wouldn't want her to go and see what was happening. He didn't like her to see things like that when they were friends, and now that they were – what were they now? – she knew that he wouldn't want her there. She shrugged and returned into the house. She was awake now. She would make breakfast.

Arturo came home a couple of hours later, covered in motor oil. "You see that truck out there?" he asked her.

"What truck?"

"Looks like the Atwoods are movin' out." He ambled through the house towards his room.

"What?" She dropped Harry Potter onto the sofa and sat up. She had to say goodbye. She reached for her shoes. She wasn't going to forget her shoes this time. She wasn't going to let him tease her about her shoes this time. Not if it was the last time she was going to see him. Not if he was moving, so suddenly.

Ryan had always lived next door. Theresa couldn't remember anyone living there before him. She couldn't imagine anyone living there after him. It was one thing for her to move. It was another for him to leave.

She scrambled out the front door and down the sidewalk, rounding the corner to the street. Dawn was standing to the side, her head bowed, her arms folded, watching as A.J. loaded another box onto the truck.

"Mrs. Atwood?" Theresa asked. A.J. scowled at her as he passed to retrieve the next box.

Dawn lifted her face. Theresa was shocked at what she saw. Her makeup was streaking down her face, lines of black and blue and red. "Where are you going?" Theresa asked. "Where's Ryan?"

Dawn looked like she was searching for the words, but she had none.

"Where's Ryan?" she asked again, her voice louder this time.

A.J. emerged from the house again with a suitcase. "Hey kid," he snapped, and it was the first time he'd addressed her directly in months, and it scared her. "Get lost."

She could only obey. She looked for his bike, for any sign that he was still here, but it was gone. She couldn't go home. Not now. What was it Mr. Medena had said? Get lost. Good idea.

She retrieved her own bike from the driveway and set off, pedaling furiously. She still wanted to look back out of habit, to see if Ryan was there, even though she knew that he wasn't. After a long ride she finally set her bike down on the leaves of the bank by the river by the train tracks behind Carver Dairy and stared out at the rushing water. She remembered him standing here, flushed, panting, squirming in her grasp with pleasure even against the pain that she knew, that she'd always known was in his heart. Even if he'd never really told her, even if she never really knew why, she knew Ryan had been hurting, and had never once been able to admit it to her.

She remembered him in her room, late at night, watching the music box spin around, singing a tune of unknown lovers from afar. She remembered him crouching in the grass like a tiger, furious at her for allowing herself to be hurt. She remembered him kissing her behind the gym at the dance for the first time. She remembered him studying the crystal on the bus on the way home from the geology museum in fifth grade, and she knew even then that he had been considering it as a weapon, missing the beauty in it. Ryan didn't see the beauty in life. He had seen too much ugliness, and too much of it had come from her.

She didn't cry, though. She couldn't bring herself to feel enough to cry.

When she got home, the truck was gone, and out on the sidewalk were several trash bags. She swallowed a little as she walked her bike up the block towards what used to be Ryan's house.

Her eyes fell on a clear plastic bag, dumped on the sidewalk with the other garbage. She recognized Ryan's lab book inside. She leaned her bike against the fence and fell to her knees, ripping the bag apart.

She flipped through the notes, all in his careful, trim handwriting. Detailed, precise. Sparse.

Something fell out on her lap. She raised it up to study it and recognized her own handwriting. She turned it over and saw herself as Joan of Arc, and Ryan as Louis Quatorze. The tenth grade history class presentations. Of course. The picture shook in her hand. She turned it back over and read the words she had scribbled to him on the last day of school. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

- _Because everybody should have a friend who's always going to be there. I'm always going to be here.-_

It was true. It hit her in a flash. She was always going to be here. Ryan Atwood was gone, and Theresa was here, coldly studying these objects that he had left behind, these artifacts, these relics of what used to be Ryan.

She had given him the photo to remember her by, and he had left it here. He wasn't going to remember her. He didn't want to remember her.

Theresa remembered a time when she had suspected that she was the only thing that kept Ryan from vanishing in Chino. She was right. She had been. And once she was gone, out of his life, there was nothing to keep him around.

She threw the lab book on the ripped trash bag, and after a second thought, she tore the picture in two and threw it at the trash as well. Objects. Things. They meant nothing now.

She walked back to her house. Arturo was watching NASCAR in the living room. "Ryan's gone," she said testing the words out loud.

"I know," he said. "Guess he ain't havin' a good week."

"Yeah?" she asked automatically, then shook her head. "I don't care. Hey, Eddie didn't call, did he?"

Arturo squinted at her. "Yeah, he did, actually. Said for you to call him back."

"Good," she said. She straightened up. "I think I will."

She felt Arturo watching her as she headed for the phone, but she didn't turn around. She didn't want his pity or his concern. Right now, she only wanted Eddie. And that was something she finally could be certain of.

An image flashed in her head. A dream. But she shook her head, trying to banish it. A memory of something. No. She would call Eddie. She wouldn't think about the dream. About the beach, and the tree, and the...

_Before she could call out to him loud enough for him to hear, he rose up suddenly. His feet left the nest and she wanted to scream, but as the nest crashed to the ground, crumbling and breaking apart in its descent, Ryan flew up, up into the sky. High. Far away. And Ryan was scared of heights._

_She wanted to call to him. Come back... wait... I'm here, I'll catch you... but the words didn't come. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. Instead, Ryan grew smaller and smaller until he was a speck against the sun, too far for her to rescue. _

_Too far to rescue her._

A/N: One more chapter to go. -KM


	24. The Wrap

"I heard."

The straw dropped from between Theresa's pursed lips. She glanced across the front seat at Eddie, not saying anything, as the end of her straw hovered in mid-air.

He fingered the fast food wrapper spread in his lap beneath the steering wheel. "So if, y'know, you want to, like, talk, or somethin', I dunno..." It was incredibly hard for him to say. That much was clear.

"I don't," Theresa said abruptly. "I don't want to talk."

"Okay," he said, clearly confused, but she could tell he was relieved.

Which she found irksome. "Do you?" she asked all of a sudden.

He stared at her. "What?"

"Do you? Want to talk?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know." She bit gently on the coke straw. That was a lie. "Eddie... this summer... it's almost over, but..."

"I know," he said, cutting her off.

"Are you – I mean..."

He set his Whopper down and stared out the window, away from her. "I got what I wanted," he said with finality. There was a bit of ketchup on the side of his mouth. She watched it move, not saying anything. "Look, baby. I got you in my life. And I lost my dad, yeah, but I guess he's in a better place, and maybe I lost some real good friends, but wherever they are, they're gonna be okay." He looked back over at her. "They are." Eddie was trying to convince himself.

She held her coke off to the side. "I thought you said he wasn't one of those kids who-"

"Maybe I was wrong," he snapped. His voice dropped. "I hope I was wrong."

The air was turning cool again. She felt a chill setting in. Theresa slurped at the last of her soda and reached over to roll the window of the truck up.

Eddie noticed and reached to roll his side up as well. His tongue flicked out, catching the ketchup smear at the side of his mouth and swallowing quickly. All of the little things that Theresa noticed so strongly now. "I wouldn't of got through this without you," he said. He reached over to take her hand. "Thank you."

She didn't know what to say, whether she should laugh or cry now. So instead she squeezed his hand and released it to reach for another chicken tender to nibble on.

"Theresa... look at me."

She stared ahead. "What?"

"Me. Theresa." His voice sounded so lost. "I'm here."

"I know," she said, still staring out the window, across the street to the high school. The freshmen were registering today, hundreds of girls and boys flocking through the gates, and so many boys looked like Ryan to her. Small, scared, lost in the tough masks they put forth. She saw dozens of Ryans walking in to the high school for the first time, packs of Ryans, maybe Ryan was coming back to start again. But as each one turned around she could see that none of them were really him. Just millions of neglected, suspicious, sensitive tough guys. And maybe all of them would eventually be lost, like Ryan, but she couldn't bring herself to try to stop it. Not this time. Theresa couldn't live through that again, she couldn't bear it.

Soon school would start again, without Ryan, just like her colorless life went on now. Without Ryan.

After a long silence Eddie spoke up. "Let's get you home, baby."

"Sure," she said absently. "Sure."

She heard the sandwich wrapper crinkle in to a ball and from the corner of her eye she saw him toss it out the window. Ryan would never – she caught herself in the thought. Ryan would do a lot of other things. But he would never litter. He was too conscious of the landscape, too conscious of the people who would have to clean up behind him. A cigarette, sure, but never a whole sandwich wrapper.

She felt the tears starting to sting at her eyes. She wanted to jump from the car to pick up the wrapper and dispose of it properly, but Eddie had started the truck and it was moving and she would only hurt herself.

She wanted to hurt herself. She wanted to feel pain. To feel anything. She wanted to be punished for every awful thing she'd ever said or done to Ryan. She wanted to hurt everyone who had hurt him, directly or indirectly, including herself.

She hiccupped a little as Eddie steered the truck out of the parking lot. She didn't want Eddie to see her cry.

She wanted to hurt the way Ryan had to be hurting, all alone. With no brother, no girlfriend, no friends at all. No parents, no home. But she wanted to hurt alone, without him living in her thoughts all the time.

"No, really, you okay?" he asked again, this time in disbelief. Of course he didn't believe. How could she be okay? How could anyone believe she was okay? Nothing was okay now. The tears and hiccups burst forth, and Eddie pulled the car over and turned it off and held her and whispered to her and loved her. Eddie was there for her. And she curled up in his arms in the front seat of his truck and shook with sobs of release. Trying to release everything she could

It still wasn't enough.

No, it never would be.

* * *

"I heard."

Theresa looked up from her book at the kitchen table, annoyed at the disturbance. Eva was standing in the doorway, wringing her hands just a little.

"Heard what?" she asked, brushing her hair back from her face.

"That Ryan left."

Theresa felt her chin jut out just a bit. Her teeth ground together. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry, Therese-"

Theresa slammed her book shut with a loud clap. "I hope you are."

Eva blinked and took a step back. "What?"

"I hope you're happy, Mama."

"No, Theresa, I'm-" She was at a loss for words. "I'm not happy, you know that, I loved Ryan like my own son..."

"Then how come you never cared when you heard them yelling at his house?" she demanded. "How come you never asked his mama why she drank so much, how come you never told him he could come to us for help? How come you told me to mind my own business? How come you never asked what was going on over there? How come you turn away _every_ time something is wrong, Mama? How come your world is perfect, when nobody else's is?"

"Calm down," Eva said in an even tone. "Theresa. You're upset, you're over-reacting..."

"I am _not!" _Theresa screamed, leaping to her feet. She felt empowered now, she felt like a woman. She felt like an adult. For everything she had been through now, she was an adult. Her childhood was long behind her. "You're blind! You don't see anything! You don't see what's going on in your own house, you don't see what's going on in your world, you just keep turning your head, hoping it'll go away if you don't look at it, but it doesn't, Mama! It doesn't!"

Arturo was there. Arturo was always there at the right time. This time he was behind Eva, looking back and forth between them, worried. "Hey – Tita – take it down." He hadn't called her Tita in years.

She threw the blue book on the floor, and it tumbled over, pages splayed across the linoleum. "Neither one of you! All that time! He wouldn't have left if we'd just... if we'd just..." She struggled for the words.

Arturo approached her, holding his hands out cautiously, defensively, to guard himself. "Tita. Theresa. It's over."

She pulled back. "We didn't," she insisted. She turned on Eva. "You. You didn't."

"Don't talk to Mama like that," Arturo snapped.

"Mama is blind, Turo," Theresa said again, the words flying from her mouth with scorn. "You know it. You know how much you get away with under her eyes." Now his own eyes narrowed, angry. She was walking a dangerous line. "She only sees what she wants to see."

Eva struggled for the words at last. "I think," she said slowly, "that you need to go sit down, and think about what you're saying."

"I have," Theresa growled. "I have thought about it, all the time I thought about it, and I know exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying that I hate you."

Eva took a step backwards, the words hitting her physically.

"You don't mean that," Arturo said, too quickly.

"I do," Theresa said. "I do mean it, I do."

Eva took a deep breath. Theresa watched her expression. She almost expected her to do the unthinkable now, to throw her out, to put her on the streets like Ryan, and then maybe she would finally feel his pain and he would sense it and he would come back to her. But that wasn't what Eva did. Instead, she did what she always did and turned away, blind to what was in front of her.

Eva walked away.

Theresa watched her walk into her bedroom - and was she shaking? - and shut the door.

She went to retrieve her Harry Potter book from the floor as Arturo studied her from across the room.

"I hope you're going to apologize," he said.

"I have nothing to apologize for," she replied. "I only told the truth."

"But it was hateful."

"But it was the truth," Theresa repeated. "Maybe Mama doesn't like the truth. Maybe that's why every word she says is wrong. And maybe you don't like the truth, either."

"If you say so, Tita," Arturo said quietly. "If you say so."

She knew that he didn't think he was telling the truth. She could tell now.

She knew the difference between a lie and the truth now.

He walked away as well, and closed his door, shutting her in the living room alone.

Theresa was alone now.

She knew other things, too. She knew the difference between friendship and love. She'd had both. Now she wondered if she would ever have either.

Theresa grabbed her jacket from the coat rack that hung beside the door, and moved outside.

She was so much wiser now. She knew the difference between pretend and real, and the difference between children and adults.

Theresa also knew the difference between Ryan and Eddie. And the difference between herself and Lily. Maybe none of them could have what they wanted, not entirely, and now she knew that.

She also knew the difference between where she was, and wherever Ryan was.

She stared through the fence, locking her fingers in to it, at the abandoned home. His house was empty now, alone and deserted. He wasn't coming back. Someone else would move in soon, and maybe they would fix the place up, or maybe it would just get worse, but it wouldn't be Ryan's house anymore, ever again.

Something else, too. She knew the difference between feeling and not feeling.

Theresa knew a lot of things now, and she knew that Ryan Atwood was truly gone from her life, and it was time to move on.

Because she knew the difference between the dream and real life. Between where she wanted to be, and where she was.

She pulled her denim jacket tight around herself as she leaned against the fence that separated their houses. It was cold, so cold for August. It should still have been summer, it should still have been warm, but fall had come early this year. It was cold for California.

The last summer of Theresa's childhood was over, and soon, school would start back. Soon, she would find out what eleventh grade would be like without Ryan Atwood. Soon, the leaves would start to change, and the pumpkins would come out, and the seasons would change.

And soon, the winter would come, and with it the holidays and lights and memories that would only remind her of everything she'd lost that last summer.

But maybe by then, if she was lucky, she would finally be okay.

FIN.

A/N: Thanks to everyone who feedbacked along the way, I really appreciate your comments and the fact that you took the time to let me know your reactions. It's an enormous help as a writer, and I received some terrific and insightful feedback over the course of this story on –Kate Monster


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